Oh, .exe. How do I even start with you. Such a bipolar history, yet such a flourishing present...
I can describe .exe for me as a guilty enjoyment that took over most of my other likes. I mean, the recipe is right there. An active community making stupid, fun stuff... especially on platforms I like... (I don't like roblox as much as I like the community aspect of it. And the company behind it seems to prioritize shooting themselves in the foot every update over the thing that's holding the platform together.) and how could I forget, Sonic Maurice "The" Hedgehog.
I mean, really, it's the perfect recipe for The Disaster. But that's MODERN .exe...
After all the dramas surrounding OM, the community seems rather peaceful (the Sinister Minds craze is a big bonding expirience for the folk there, apparently). But that's not how it's always been for the black eyed-red pupil hedgehog...
(DATE OF THE CRIMSONX GAME RELEASING). The worst game ever has been made. Walk right simulator, known better as The original Sonic.Exe. Scary Sonic goes around, killing his friends for seemingly no reason. Then he claims "HE IS GOD". What's his problem, dude?
This game sucked. Garbage. No meaning behind it, no actual storyline, NOTHING. But it's the Sonic community we're talking about. The people who made their own games when SEGA kept releasing back to back failures. It got latched on. It was also the era of internet creepypastas, you'd be including Sonic.Exe in your "DON'T EVER MEET" list, alongside legends like Jeff The Killer, Slenderman or Freddy.
It was perfectly flawed! It was almost as bad as Sonic 06 (Silver didn't deserve this to be his debut...), so the fans did what they already did with bad official games! The concept got more fangames, art, stories, everything!
Meet Spirits of Hell. The first ACTUAL game. Not just a walk right simulator! It was the first in the .exe space to "invent" the concept of outcomes. There were actual different endings this time. Wow, revolutionary! Basic game design! Still, it was a lot to ask of this subcommunity. It was relatively small at the time, even with Markiplier making a video on the CrimsonX game.
In Spirits of Hell you could play as the original cast of CrimsonX, that being Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Eggman). The game served as a "proof of concept", as a second game was soon on its way. With the most original title... Spirits of Hell Round 2.
Spirits of Hell Round 2 continued right where the first left off, at the best ending (everyone survives). As in the other endings, even if you lose just as one character, everyone dies (That's what the EXE says, anyway). The game introduces Cream, Sally and Amy (I don't actually remember if the cast is larger, but I think it isn't). The game follows an actual pseudo-story, as the endings allow for specific pairs of characters to arise. They are actually pretty accurate with the characterization most of the time, actually using the setting to tell interesting plot lines and endings, like the Cream and Tails duo ending or the Amy and Tails duo ending. (Noticing how Tails is in the most notable endings...)
It was... actually not that bad, in retrospective. It was an inventor, a beacon of light for the horrors that could unfold with the help of Scary Sonic!
The games kept evolving. Hell, some even branched off to different formats of media (take Shin Sonic as an example, which takes a more "analog horror" approach, or maybe the Mario "exes" such as IHATEYOU/MX(isn't his name Brutus now?) leaving the Sonic community.)
There were many games inspired by the beforementioned Spirits Of Hell, but something that took the community by storm has to be Sonic.EXE: The Disaster. One of the first "Assymetrical" horror games on the ROBLOX platform that got a decent amount of traction, basically inventing the genre on the platform (DBD is its own thing and from what I've heard it SUCKS), and I would even say being one of the reasons behind the "asym giants" on the platform today. (Take as an example the HELLHOLE that is Forsaken; They wanted to add a Sonic.EXE killer whose style looked way too familiar to TD's to deny...)
TD was... not the most "balanced" game at first sight. It looked like the killer would just curb stomp the survivors every time, with next to no counterplay (Looping isn't really an option, you try to do one lap and the killer is already ontop of you, due to the sheer speed difference.) But did that actually happen?
TD had a very delicate balance philosophy. I cannot quite put it into words, as it's been a while since I last played it, but one thing was clear: Work together or perish.
Not very delicate, I know. But it's exactly what kept the games interesting. You could try and rely on just GODLIKE juking and such, but it is possibly the worst thing you can do in the game, given how jumping is essencially your only juking option. The way you survive is by giving and taking. Let me explain.
The survivor's kits range from very self sustainable (Knuckles) to "Leave me unnatended for three seconds and I'll die" (Cream, when the killer decides to pursue her after the speedboost she has runs out). However, even the most sustainable characters cannot reliably stall the killer. Even Knuckles "I Don't Chuckle" The Echidna needs support from his team in a pinch, like when he misses an ability of his, leaving him very vulnerable. For that, we have my possibly favorite kit in Assymetrical history...
TD's Metal Sonic.
While every survivor had a self-defense option that could be applied to help the team, Metal had the opposite. He had to help the team first, get help later. He had what's possibly the most powerful stun ingame; the ability to drag the killer along with him. Yes, it could be used to run away, but that isn't very effective. He goes from being slower than the killer to ever-so-slightly outpacing them for 5 seconds. And with the killers having abilities to catch up, the best move for Metal to survive was to bring the killer to the team so they can help.
The thing I like about him is that both of his abilities incentivise him to get close and personal with the killer, outright dragging the killer to himself. To compensate, he has a whopping 50 extra health. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it does help him tank at LEAST an extra hit from every killer.