Amanda the Adventurer


Amanda the Adventurer is a puzzle and horror video game series developed by MANGLEDmaw Games and published by DreadXP. Partially inspired by the children's television show Dora the Explorer, the series centers upon Riley Park, who has become involved with the sinister mystery surrounding the fictional children's show Amanda the Adventurer.
The indie series started as an entry into a game jam in April 2022, known as the Pilot Episode, and was developed into a full game in April 2023 after it was acquired by DreadXP. The game spawned a trilogy, with Amanda the Adventurer 2 being released in October 2024 and Amanda the Adventurer 3 in November 2025.

Gameplay

During all three games, players must solve puzzles and locate VHS tapes containing episodes from the children's series Amanda the Adventurer. While screening the tapes, players can interact with Amanda and her sheep companion, Wooly, which can in turn impact the player's environment and game endings. The player assumes control of Riley Park, a non-gender-specific character who is tasked with investigating the mystery surrounding the show and the sinister company Hameln Entertainment. There are a few secret tapes to unlock such secret endings. Each decision that players make can affect how the game ends.

Plot

''Amanda the Adventurer'' (2023)

Riley Park receives a letter from his/her/their Aunt Kate, who has recently died and bequeathed to him/her/them her home in Kensdale, Ohio while mentioning a VHS tape in her attic. After arriving at Kate's house, Riley enters the attic and discovers that the tape contains an episode of Amanda the Adventurer, a children's television series that started out as a public-access live action show. After it was acquired by a studio called Hameln Entertainment, it then became a popular computer-animated cartoon. During its run, parents became concerned about some of the show's increasingly disturbing content. Several children also went missing while watching the show, which led Kate to investigate it.
As Riley plays the tape, he/she/they are introduced to the show's titular protagonist, Amanda, and her timid but friendly sidekick Wooly, an anthropomorphic sheep. Both are able to fully interact with Riley, and by completing various puzzles, Riley discovers more tapes of Amanda the Adventurer, each one being darker than the last. Riley can also discover additional secret tapes that hint at Hameln's darker intentions, along with behind-the-scenes footage about the series and its missing creator, Sam Colton, who had his adopted daughter Rebecca play as Amanda.
The game has several different endings depending on the player's choices.
The Gruesome Ending can be obtained if you didn't help the kitten in the tape, "What's a Family?" or typing any answer in the tape, "Everything Rots!", Amanda's entity breaks through the trapdoor and lunges at Riley Park, killing him/her/them.
The Fateful Ending can be obtained in the second version of "Everything Rots!" after helping the kitten by clicking on her, the TV then turns off. After this, the player can walk to the now-open trapdoor, which leads to a white void that emits the Amanda the Adventurer him/her/theme song. After entering it, the screen fades to white and after that, the player finds him/her/themselves as one of the meats on the hooks in the Meatman's shops, watching the Meatman cut meat in front of him/her/them. After a moment, the screen fades to black, and the player is returned to the menu.
The Hollow Ending can be obtained watching the tape, "We Can Share". It is the first outcome of "We Can Share" tape and is specifically obtained by declining to hear Amanda's secret. Amanda's disappointed by this, saying, "I thought you were different." The ending is mostly uneventful, only involving the attic being cleared out with a bloody piece of paper with the word "LEAVE" in the middle. With the trapdoor open, the screen fades to black on approach, the credits rolling afterward.
The End is the second outcome of "We Can Share". It is obtained by accepting Amanda's request to hear her secret. She tells Riley, "I'm out there... Somewhere..." before the video becomes a distorted mess, the TV shaking as corrupted imagery flashes on the screen while emitting loud, distorted sounds. The player is forced to throw a brick at the TV, causing it to explode. Afterward, the sun rises through the windows. After a fade to black, the credits roll.
The End? is an alternate to "The End" obtained by finding all the secret tapes. After the sun rises, a thump from behind shows a masked figure has entered the attic, ending the game on a cliffhanger. This ending is canon, continuing at the beginning of Amanda the Adventurer 2.

''Amanda the Adventurer 2'' (2024)

Picking up where the first game left off, the masked figure tells Riley that she is a friend of Kate's. The figure later takes him/her/them to Kate's former workplace, the Kensdale Public Library, where Riley is again tasked with finding more Amanda the Adventurer tapes while the masked figure stays outside to keep watch, using a walkie-talkie to communicate with Riley.
As Riley solves various puzzles and watches all of the library's Amanda the Adventurer tapes, Amanda and Wooly frequently encounter an opossum who meddles in his/her/their adventures. During these interactions, Riley must also avoid the wrath of Amanda's creature, who will attack him/her/them if Amanda is unsatisfied with Riley's choices. Riley can also discover other tapes which reveal that Sam Colton was abducted by Hameln, Kate was a member of a secret group investigating Hameln and the tapes for the past fifteen years, and that Hameln kept Rebecca in a vegetative state before using her to control Amanda as a supernatural avatar, who would entice children to come to Hameln's facility.
The game has two different endings: in the normal ending, the masked figure gathers all the tapes in a box and breaks one of the tapes with a bandage on it, causing a blue aura to escape from it. This then causes Amanda's creature to burst in from the ceiling and pin her to the desk. Grabbing a blank VHS tape, Riley escapes through a secret hatch that was installed in Kate's office.
If the player finds all four of the game's secret tapes, Riley watches an alternate version of the last Amanda tape, where the opossum hears the masked figure's voice over Riley's radio, and tries to cry out "Joanne" before Amanda and Wooly subdue him. The player can then obtain a secret audio cassette tape which recorded Kate's last words to Riley, stating that everyone investigating Hameln has died, and warning Riley to destroy the tapes rather than watch him/her/them before being killed in a car crash. Overhearing this, the masked figure reveals herself to be Joanne Cook, whose younger brother, Jordan, was one of the children who disappeared while watching the show. Convinced that Jordan is trapped in the tapes and that destroying him/her/them will free him, Joanne manipulated Kate into helping her and caused Amanda's creature to attack him/her/them, indirectly leading to Kate's death. Joanne urges Riley to flee before she is mauled to death by another demonic entity resembling Wooly. Riley escapes down the secret hatch with the blank VHS tape.

''Amanda the Adventurer 3'' (2025)

In a prologue set ten years prior to the events of the first game, an unnamed associate of Kate's infiltrates Hameln Entertainment in an attempt to find Rebecca. He is unsuccessful, but he finds eight pods containing the missing children, who are being used to portray the objects in Amanda's surroundings. The associate tries to disable the alarm system via Amanda's scavenger hunt tape, but he is ultimately caught and killed by security.
In the present day, continuing from the second game's ending, Riley manages to escape from Wooly's creature by fleeing into the sewers and entering the abandoned Hameln facility containing the children's pods. However, Wooly's creature follows him/her/them and persistently attempts to enter the facility. In order to progress, Riley must watch more tapes and solve puzzles. The opossum reappears in the tapes, infuriating Wooly but delighting Amanda, who names him "Chicken Scratch". Upon discovering other tapes and audio logs, Riley learns that Sam Colton was killed while attempting to rescue Rebecca and unwittingly unleashed Amanda's creature, codenamed "The Colton Anomaly", a manifestation born from a discharge from the technology that Hameln used to harness Rebecca's psychic powers. Eventually, Riley is tasked with disarming the alarm system using the same scavenger hunt tape, during which Chicken Scratch grows increasingly distressed as he is aware that Wooly's creature is approaching. Riley manages to solve the puzzle just as Wooly's creature breaks into the pod room and destroys the pods, killing the occupants, while Riley escapes via a nearby elevator.
Riley is taken to the facility's inner sanctum, a small satanic chapel, and watches several more tapes. It is soon revealed that Wooly is actually Marcus Moutman, a Hameln employee hired to monitor Amanda, and that his creature, codenamed "Shepherd", was created as a more controllable and subservient version of the Anomaly that Hameln used to find and destroy the remaining tapes. Having been jealous and furious throughout Amanda's growing friendship with Chicken Scratch and Riley, Wooly has an emotional meltdown, which causes him to glitch and die. Riley solves one final puzzle that allows him/her/them access to a chamber containing Rebecca's pod, which is surrounded by a chasm, and finally release her.
There are two endings depending on the player's choices; in the normal ending, Rebecca and Riley witness the Anomaly and Shepherd fight over the final tape, which contains the part of Rebecca's soul that makes up Amanda. During the struggle, both entities fall into the chasm to his/her/their deaths, along with the tape, causing Rebecca to lament that she will "never be whole again". In the true ending, after the player collects all of the four secret tapes, the Anomaly appears severely wounded after killing Shepherd offscreen. Riley gives the final tape to Rebecca, who then breaks it, causing the Anomaly to disintegrate and Amanda to disappear. As Riley and Rebecca leave the chamber, an outtake recorded during Sam and Rebecca's public-access show is played, ending the trilogy.