If you've been lurking around the internet and/or especially Youtube, you should be familiar with the title Five Nights at Freddy's (FnaF). It is a point-and-click indie survival horror game that became very popular in only a few days after its release, with mostly positive reviews all around. Its second installment, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (FnaF2), was released around a week ago, and horror game fans swarmed all over it thanks to the success of the first FnaF.
So what's this game is all about that it earned so much fame in a short time? Let's go through the plot first. You play as a security guard in a family restaurant called 'Freddy Fazzbear's Pizza', a family restaurant where "kids and parents alike come for the entertainment and food". Their form of entertainment comes in the form of special animatronics mascots, 'Freddy' the bear and his friends, programmed to please the crowds.
I just can't see how kids would love these things
Sounds like a fun job? Probably. It's just a bunch of kids, nothing an adult can't handle. There might some of them who would play around with the animatronics, and it would be your job to make sure they don't do any damage to them. The game is set on the time when iPad has not been created yet, so there's no method of making annoying kids docile in one move.
But no, it turns out you're positioned on the night shift from 12am to 6am, and your office sucks so bad it looks worse than a college student dorm room.
Look at all this mess
Still, it's just a nightshift, some of us had been there before. The only challenges are usually related to hunger, sleepiness, and urination problem. But as soon as you start your first night, the previous guard before your shift begins calls you from the phone, welcoming you for a bit, explaining your job, and giving you some heads up about the.... anomalies that happens during the night.
According to him, the animatronics moves around during the night, something about their servos locking up if they shut it down. And since they're programmed to entertain a crowd, they would be automatically attracted to the only source of sound within the restaurant - your office.
No thanks, I'd rather stay hungry for the next six hours. Also, fuck off
He told you that the animatronics wouldn't recognize you as a person after hours, they see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on instead. And since it's against the rules, they would stuff you inside a costume should you get caught by them... a costume filled with crossbeams, wires, and other devices, especially around the facial area.
The job suddenly turned out to be a lot worse than it's supposed to be.
As if the pay was not an obvious enough sign to find another job
In FnaF, your only means of protection from the animatronics are your camera which can be used to pinpoint their locations within the restaurant, and the electric doors (plus the lights) on your left & right side that you should close when they start poking their face in front of your office. All of them consumes power, the more you use them the faster the power will drain. Once the power is out, there's nothing you can do but to pray that it's almost 6am before it happened.
And you'll never hear the Toreador Song the same way again
In FnaF2, you will have unlimited power for your camera and lights for the ventilation shaft on your left and right, but your flashlight which you can use to ward off animatronics that appears in the front hallway has limited power. Also, you won't have any electric doors to protect yourself, but you get a Freddy mask instead which you can use to fool any (but one) animatronics that shows up in your office, making them think that you're one of them and leave you alone.
It would have been a lot easier if there's no music box that you need to play remotely every once in a while in one of the rooms in order to prevent a marionette animatronics from murdering you instantly.
At least the office is (somewhat) less shitty than before
The game received a lot of praise for its simplicity and the atmosphere that it creates. The feeling of not being able to run at all from a certain death, with only limited options to avoid it for a short duration, makes the game very intense. Once you start panicking, which you most probably will, shit hits the fan. The fact that the animatronics teleports around randomly doesn't make it any better.
There is also an eerie backstory of the game that adds the spice to it, and made fans discuss endlessly, which indicates a good story. There was one false rumor spread around by some fans (inputing a certain year number in the Custom Night mode) that made the game creator shut it down by making the game crash with a jumpscare should anyone attempt to do it.
Glad it's not 1986, or it will be my face that shows up for the jumpscare
Every death comes with a jumpscare before the game over screen, which would scare the crap out of most new players early on. But after two to three hours later, some might develop immunity to it and would be frustrated instead of getting scared. In FnaF2, you would sometimes get to play a creepy 8-bit Atari-esque minigame related to the backstory after several deaths.
The promotion for this game is also one of the reason why it gained so much popularity. With famous Youtubers like PewDiePie, Markiplier, and yamimash playing this game on their channel, the public got so interested in this game that they want to play it themselves. And that's not even taking in the account of other people who spread the word themselves.
If you're a horror enthusiast, I would recommend you to try this one out. This is one game that takes a different approach in a survival horror game, with a simple yet frustrating concept that would provide challenge as well as the scare you need.
Not me, just writing about the game already made me need a dose of kittens
And with all the mystery that surrounds the backstory of the game, one remains unsolved: Why the fuck would this guy stay and continue his job after the first night??
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