Five Nights at Freddy's

### Release date

July 24, 2014 (Indie DB; Demo) August 8th, 2014 (Windows) August 26th, 2014 (Android) September 11th, 2014 (iOS) November 29th, 2019 (Switch) November 29th, 2019 (PlayStation 4) November 29th, 2019 (Xbox One)

### Rating

9/10 (Steam) 4.7/5 (Google Play) 4.7/5 (App Store)

*"During the day, it's a place of joy. But you aren't here during the day. You have the night watch.*
***-Trailer tagline***

***Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF)*** is a horror Indie game published in 2014. Set in a family pizzeria, the players role is Mike Schmidt, a security guard who's shift is at night. Schmidt must complete his shifts without being caught by the murderous animatronic characters. Using cameras and doors consumes the players limited electricity, loosing all the power makes these items useless.

*Five Nights at Freddy's* received generally positive reviews from critics, considering it is a frightening and horror game. Some found the jumpscares repetitive and the game to have little replay value. It became the subject of "Let's Play" videos on YouTube and gained a lot of attention. The game's success led to the launch of a game franchise, including sequels and books. It's popularity led to several imitations and fangames.

The first trailer was released June 14th, 2014. A month later, a demo came out on IndieDB. Then on August 8th, 2014, the full version came out on Windows of $7.99.

## Gameplay

*Five Nights at Freddy's* is a point-and-click survival horror game. The player controls Mike Schmidt, a security guard for the family pizza restaurant *"Freddy Fazbear's Pizza"*. The play must complete their shift that lasts from midnight to 6:00 AM without being caught by the murderous animatronics that wander at night.

The player, defenseless in an office, is given access to a network of security cameras that give them views around various area of the pizzeria. Each of the four animatronics, behave differently, and their movement takes place off screen. The player has a set of lights that they can use to illuminate the hallways to the left and right hallways outside of the office. And if there is an animatronic in the hallway, they can activate a button that closes the door a hallway and prevent the animatronic from entering. If an animatronic is to enter the office, the will catch and kill the player, causing a game over screen and forcing you to restart the night.

Using the cameras, doors and lights consume the players limited electrical power; if all the power is gone the cameras become deactivated, the doors are forced open if closed, and all lights go out. Freddy Fazbear then appears playing the Toreador Song,  causing a game over; unless the shift ends before he attacks. The game is divided into levels called "nights", each lasting about 10 minutes in real time. As the player completes each night, the animatronic become more hostile and the difficulty increases. The main game has a total of 6 levels, comprising the five main nights and an extra sixth night

## Plot

*Five Nights at Freddy's* takes place in 1993, it begins with Mike Schmidt listening to a voicemail from his unnamed predecessor at the start of his first shift. Similar messages are played the following nights, the employee tells Schmidt about the restaurant and its history. The security officer explains about the restaurant and its history. The security officer explains that the restaurant's four animatronic characters; Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy are allowed to be mobile at night due to their servomotors locking up if they are left off for too long. He warns Schmidt that if an animatronic encounters a human after hours, they will be mistaken as a animatronic endoskeleton and be stuffed into a spare mechanical suit, killing them in the process.

The player is told about disturbing events in the restaurant's history. A voice message mentions "The Bite of '87", an incident which is implied to have led to the loss of someone's frontal lobe and forced animatronic mobility during the day to be prohibited. Newspaper reveals that a man reportedly lured five children into a backroom on site and killed them. Although the suspect was arrested, the children's bodies were never found. The pizzeria had received complaints that the animatronics began to have nasty odors while blood and mucus leaked from they're eyes and mouths.

On the 4th night, the voicemail implies that Schmidt's predecessor was killed by an animatronic while recording the message. The message on the 5th night consists garbling sounds. Schmidt receives paycheck after the 5th & 6th nights. If the player reloads their game after completing the 6th night, they are given access to a 7th night (custom night). where they can choose any character; to any difficulty. After finishing the 7th night Schmidt is fired.

## Reception

*Five Nights at Freddy's* received positive reviews from critics. Indie Game Magazine praised *Five Nights at Freddy's* for its simple take on the horror genre, noting that its artistic direction and gameplay mechanics contributed to a feeling of "brutal tension" only worsened by how a player may be familiar with similar restaurants such as *Chuck E. Cheese's*, and that "it's an incredibly terrifying experience to try to save yourself from the single jump scare that ends the game."

*Five Nights at Freddy's* was described as a "fantastic example of how cleverness in design and subtlety can be used to make an experience terrifying." However, the game was criticized for taking too long to load when launched.

Omri Petitte for PC Gamer gave *Five Nights at Freddy's* a score of 80 out of 100, commenting that the game took a "less-is-more" approach to its design and that while "the AI isn't some masterwork of procedural unpredictability," it would "[still] head straight to you and eat your face off, or it'll play around like an innocent child before closing in for the kill. Your mind will fill in the rest."

The game's overall atmosphere was praised for emphasizing the fear and suspense of an approaching threat rather than the arrival of the threat itself executed frequently in other horror-oriented games. However, the gameplay of *Five Nights at Freddy's* was criticized for becoming repetitive once a player masters it, as there is "not much more to expect beyond managing battery life and careful timing of slamming doors shut, so those with steely willpower won't find anything else past the atmosphere of it all."

Ryan Bates of Game Revolution gave the game a 4.5 out of 5, comparing its camera-oriented gameplay to the 1992 game *Night Trap*. He praised the game's minimalistic presentation (with particular emphasis on its audio design and lack of music) for contributing to the terror of the game, along with the fact that the "nervous impulses" of its repetitive gameplay would reach "almost OCD-type levels, adding to the tense environment." In conclusion, he felt that the game was "horror done right," but that it was too short.

*Eurogamer'*s Jeffrey Matulef compared the animatronic animals in the game to Weeping Angels, who are predatory creatures from the universe of *Doctor Who*, due to their ability to only move when they are not being observed.

*Softpedia* gave the game 4 out of 5 stars, with reviewer Cosmin Anton noting that it "drifts away from the classic first-person horror survival titles," but that the "inability to move combined with the limited power available will make you feel quite helpless in front of those relentless robots that just want to share a bit of their 'love' with you."

## Development History

### 2014

* June 13th: *Five Nights at Freddy's* was submitted to the Steam Greenlight.

* June 14th: The first trailer for *Five Nights at Freddy's* was uploaded to YouTube
* July 24th: The demo was released on Indie DB by animdude, a indie games website.
* August 8th: The full game was released on Desura.
* August 18th: *Five Nights at Freddy's* was accepted on Steam Greenlight and released on Steam for Windows PC.
* August 25th: The game was released on Android Google Play Store by Scott Cawthon.
* September 11th: The game was released on iPhone App Store by Scott Cawthon.

### 2015

* January 16th: *Five Nights at Freddy's* won 3 FEAR awards by *user choice*.
* April: Warner Bros. purchased the rights to adapt the game to a feature film.
* November: *Five Nights at Freddy's* was included in the *Five Nights at Freddy's Franchise Pack (1-4) .* It costs $24.99.

### 2016

* October 25th: the Franchise Pack is updated, now including *Sister Location*. The bundle now costs $29.55. If you had the Franchise Pack before the update then you'd get Sister Location for free.

### 2017

* February 6th: Scott Cawthon mentioned that the production of the movie was "back at square one.".
* March 28th: Scott posted a picture of a chair with the name *"Freddy"* on it, with a displayed picture of Blumhouse Productions logo, revealing that production company will be involved with the production of the movie.

### 2019

* July 30th: the mobile version received a remastered edition by Clickteam LLC. The game is comepletely improved to resemble the PC version, along with major fixes and changes.
* November 28th: *Five Nights at Freddy's,* along with FnaF 2, 3 and 4, were uploaded by Clickteam LLC to Nintendo Switch and Xbox One.
* November 29th: They all were uploaded on the PS4, but not in the UK (United Kingdom).

## Links

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4UTOek0-Y
2. ↑ https://www.indiedb.com/
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFs1fDOmHVw
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameRankings
5. ↑ https://www.metacritic.com/games/
6. ↑ https://www.metacritic.com/games/
7. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacritic
8. ↑ https://www.metacritic.com/game/five-nights-at-freddys/