Removing the "Poly" in Polytoria

• March 3, 2026
• Polytoria

In a previous journal entry, I had highlighted Polytoria as a viable ROBLOX alternative. I voiced my deep displeasure and heartbreak over ROBLOX, and how I had held high hopes for Polytoria. Lately, I've been losing hope for Polytoria.

Within this past month, Polytoria has been aiming to solidify its own, separate identity away from ROBLOX as a whole. This is respectable, especially considering ROBLOX is a giant corporation that has deep-rooted problems on its platform with predatory users they refuse to ban on top of predatory practices littering their platform (and even encouraged). Due to little legal scares such as ROBLOX sueing a toy company for looking similar to various packages that are on their platform, patenting R6 and R15, I fully understand wanting to avoid ANY legal trouble with the platform just out of principal. This also includes fully redesigning the avatar the player uses on their site.

Two designs were pushed, with the first recieving mild backlash. Many compared it to the ROBLOXian 2.0 package, and it's hard not to see why. In their community Discord, feedback was given and tweaks were made, and it felt good to me. I was excited to use it. However, these never made it to the platform. A while ago, they released their third design. It is entirely new and separate, but recieved major backlash. Despite this, the developers are continuing to stick with it. I want to explain why the design does not sit with me personally.

This is the proposed third design:

There's a lot of problems I hold against this design, and the fact that the staff have not been receptive or even responding to negative criticism in their community Discord makes me lose hope for the platform. I fully understand wanting to distance themselves from ROBLOX, but this design contradicts their entire brand identity. I'll break down my reasoning down to a few sections.

Identity: Soft vs. Angular

While it's no secret that Polytoria was heavily inspired by ROBLOX, a big part of Polytoria's identity is seen in its logo.

It has three sharp angular lines surrounding a cube. This gives an impression of Polytoria being angular, sharp. And personally, I came to Polytoria not just for a ROBLOX replacement, but for something new. ROBLOX has heavily deviated from its sharper, rougher look and it has entirely lost its identity by chasing generative AI, "the metaverse" and other corporate buzzwords. Comparing Polytoria's sharp logo to the avatars points out a huge inconsistency in their branding. Their new default avatars are soft, round, cute. It completely betrays the initial identity they've set out to form. Personally, to me, it strongly reminds me of games such as PEAK or Super Battle Golf. Many, many games are taking this kind of art style and approach and it's giving me severe burn out from the look. Little games take advantage of an angular approach anymore, because a softer, cuter game is seen as more palatable to a modern audience. It's so limiting.

Not only that, but the playerbase has leaned into this kind of style, especially with their avatars. Many games, including staff-created games, lean into this angular look. Even in current test footage with the new avatars, they still stick to this, and the avatar sticks out like a sore thumb. It entirely removes the "poly" of "polygon" from Polytoria.

Height

My other biggest issue with the avatar is its height. It's much taller and thinner than the current player model, and this will cause severe issues for every game on the platform. As of now, no game is built for these proportions in mind, and will require massive rework. Door frames, obstical courses, the list goes on. It's also important to point out how this will affect horror games on the platform. A sock-monkey avatar will often ruin the art style and emmersion of the game many developers are looking for. In fact, many horror developers have already lost motivation for their games according to folks in the community Discord server. This change inherently harms their players. Because the avatar is much lankier, it inherently limits player creativity with their avatar.

Let's look at the Minecraft avatar, for example. Blocky in nature and with a fixed height of 2.5 blocks, but the model is overall stocky. It offers another player model variant where the arms are slimmer. Despite this, you can accurately recreate many characters without having their proportions feel off. Peppino Spaghetti, Doomguy, Sonic, Garnet from Steven Universe. These are all VERY drastic character designs, but are often captured excellently with the base playermodel. It also helps that there is an option for thinner arms. Because of the avatar not feeling tall OR short, but right in the middle, it lets players have more imagination and creativity with their avatars. Forcing a tall one will inherently limit the player, especially when the avatar is inherently thin.

Personal grievances

It's no secret that the avatars are not getting my favor anytime soon. However, I want to explain why on a personal level these avatars hurt. I've been called "a bitch" over it, so please note this is entirely personal, but other folks are likely to feel similar.

The lanky and thin sock-monkey avatar genuinely makes me feel dysphoric. I don't want to be tall, I don't want to be thin, I don't want to be round. I want an angular look, something with a shorter or ambiguously average height. I want my avatar to look stocky, with a square head, sharp. I don't want to be "cute." I don't want to be a damn doll. I've compared the avatar's look to other games, but the difference between those games and this is that those are not sandbox games. Those are not games you are intended to create games inside of, those are not games meant to allow a diverse array of customizability because they have a primary focus and goal. Polytoria is inherently open-ended, meant to be changed and played with. Those other games are not. Having my freedom of expression severely cut back because of a deep desire to separate itself from ROBLOX just feels sickening to me. And it sounds silly, but it deeply reminds me of how ROBLOX got to where it is today because it has a history of forcing changes on the platform and ignoring negative feedback. It's nowhere near comparable to Polytoria as it is right now, but I'm worried for the precident it sets.

I do want to point out, that because of the avatar redesigns, the staff have gotten an immense amount of death threats and harassment. Obviously, this is not okay. It will never be justified. There is also a strong, severe reaction against the staff aside from the inappropriate behavior, but I firmly believe it is because the staff have barely responded, if at all, to ANY negative criticism. Talking to community members, we seem to agree that the lack of response from the staff has contributed to our loss of hope for the platform. Everyone feels unheard.

The development team is very small, so I understand how overwhelmed they likely are. I know the designer behind the current pitched redesign is VERY overwhelmed. However, there's still an intense lack of communication, reception to feedback, and it's making me admittedly feel physically ill. I fully understand wanting a separate identity from ROBLOX, but at this point, it feels like a massive overcorrection.

Conclusion

I'm tired, boss. I just want a platform that allows me total freedom of expression and won't kill me with hammers because I existed a little wrong. I want a platform to make a roleplaying game with a functioning chat. I want to feel like myself, be myself, and create what I want. I'm tired of being sanetized, I'm tired of being forced into Cute Little Boxes. I just want that freedom back.