five nights at freddy’s

The Hottest Toy of Christmas | Writing Warm-Up (ft. A FNAF Fanfiction)

JoeRover behind the scenes, Writing Warm-up , , , , , , , , ,

The following is a Five Nights at Freddy’s fanfiction. I do not own any rights to the characters. Please consider supporting Scott Cawthon and the games. The jingle tune is similar to one used by MatPat in his FNAF videos.

It’s fun; it’s wow; it’ll haunt your dreams. It’s Nightmare Freddy.

Yes, Nightmare Freddy, the toy on every Crying Child’s Christmas list. Whether they’ve been bitten by a rouge animatronic or have had their soul scooped out so a combination of robots can wear their body like a meat suit, your child will absolutely love this new toy from Fazbear Entertainment. 

Nightmare Freddy comes with everything a parent could want in a child’s toy: sharp claws, jaw bite strength equal to a bear trap, and lots of pieces that’ll fall off causing various choking hazards.

Nightmare Freddy also comes with a nighttime feature where he’ll roam the halls stalking your child.

That’s Nightmare Freddy from the same people who brought you the family-friendly Sexy Chica doll.

Until the next wormhole…thanks for reading.

Smashwords End of Year Sale Dec. 18-Jan. 1

Golden Freddy’s Vengeance | Writing Warm-Up (ft. A FNAF Fanfiction)

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The following is a Five Nights at Freddy’s fanfiction. I do not own any rights to the characters. Please consider supporting Scott Cawthon and the games.

Hi there, it’s me, Security Guard #28. After a hard night of surviving attacks from wonky animatronics possessed by murdered children, I like to sit down with a relaxing cup of Golden Freddy’s Vengeance. It’s just the thing I need to get back out there AND NEVER REST! Thanks to Golden Freddy’s Vengeance, I can keep coming back over and over and over…

Until the next wormhole…thanks for reading.

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The Theory of Dreadbear | FNAF VR DLC (Spoilers)

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Contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Tis the season to theorize.

Too early for a cringey Christmas joke?

Over Halloween Scott Cawthon, creator of the Five Nights at Freddy’s games, decided to further torment the horror game community by releasing a DLC for the Help Wanted VR game called “The Curse of Dreadbear.” *Video gameplay of the DLC can be found on the GTLive YouTube channel.*

The DLC starts out by saying how it is just a fun add-on and has no hidden intent. Yeah, sure. Pfft, right.

The main screen for the DLC looks like a Halloween themed rural festival: barn, corn maze, lots of pumpkins. You then spot that this festival takes place in 1983, the year of the bite (or was it ’87–frankly the lore of FNAF is murky at best and downright confusing other times). Later on, the host of the video, MatPat, points out that the house on the hill is similar to the one in FNAF 4. If I remember correctly, and I think MatPat even mentions, FNAF 4 also has connections to the bite of ’83.

Eventually, the player gets to a mini-game where they have to find keys in a maze in order to unlock the cellar. Once the cellar opens, you are taken to a cellar version of the prize room. The prize room is an area where you can collect your prize for winning each mini-game. The cellar prize room is, well, creepy…ax, spooky candles, and all.

This time instead of some candy or a stuffed animal, you win a creepy bunny mask similar to good ol’ Springtrap. Springtrap is the suit series villain and child murderer William Afton wears. In the VR game it is hinted that Gltichtrap is based on Springtrap and contains a fragment of Afton. The spooks continue when you wear the mask and hold the Glitchtrap plushie while at the Help Wanted main room (not the DLC area).

While others talk about the theory that the player is possessed by Glitchtrap or discuss how Gltichtrap is corrupting the minds of all the players in order to raise a cult (which you can find via a video by SuperHorrorBro), I’m going to be talking about the DLC title. Though I totally hope the FNAF movie features this idea of a Glitchtrap cult; it’d be so creepy to see a whole bunch of people surrounding the hero while wearing that mask. *Shivers*

I found it interesting that the DLC mentions a curse. A curse seems like typical Halloween fun, just like the DLC, but a curse can be passed down. The game has been hinting that Afton, via Glitchtrap, is passing down his murderous ways to a new generation of killers. Also, the DLC places you in 1983, the time of the bite. The bite is what set off everything in the series. Sure, Afton was murdering kids before this but it was after the bite that he started looking into the soul juice that makes the animatronics move on their own. The bite also causes the closure of at least one Freddy’s restaurant. Afton begins experimenting with the soul remnants and the spooky stuff begins. The curse is born.

Also, when does a curse usually activate? When someone goes messing around with forbidden items, such as collecting glitch tapes in the main FNAF game. The curse of Afton is passed on to the player when they gather all the tapes.

I also find the names of the new characters to be interesting. For example, Glitchtrap. It seems like a nice mash-up of Springtrap and “glitch.” That is what it is in the game: a glitch of Springtrap. But, it is also a glitch that traps you. Once you get all the tapes, you are trapped in the game. You become a trapped follower of Glitchtrap.

So, I wondered about Dreadbear. Dread is a great fear of something or a feeling of anxiety to something. It was a Freddy animatronic that did the ’83 bite and started the curse. Freddy is the “leader.” He is something to dread. But, I also started thinking about the bullies who tossed the kid to Freddy in the first place. How would you feel if you were a young kid and the person you picked on was killed because of something you did? Possibly haunted by the event? You’d be full of dread. Maybe there’ll be a game similar to FNAF 4 where it is one of the bullies facing their guilt in the form of Dreadbear.

Finally, I find the use of masks throughout the Halloween game interesting. There is also a mention of a mask in the main game. Masks are symbolic of hiding your true self. The Glitchtrap corrupted wear masks. On the outside, they look human but inside they are murderers. They might not be wearing actual masks, but the spirit/remnant is wearing the person like a mask. Also in one of the tapes, it is hinted that Jeremy sliced off his face and it looked like a mask. I wonder if Jeremy tried to cut off his face in an attempt to rid himself of the Glitchtrap corruption; he wanted to “remove the mask.” Lastly, the bullies wore masks. All the mask references in the DLC could further point towards one (or more) of the bullies coming across Dreadbear in a later game.

Do you have any Five Nights at Freddy’s theories? Let me know in the comments below.

Until the next wormhole…thanks for reading.

Join in the adventure as Joe and company deal with everything from waking up in the morning to stopping an alien invasion in the Christmas themed eBook Gift of the Minion. Releases Dec. 3. Preorder for $0.99, regular price $2.99.

FNAF Doomed? | Tips and Tricks

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Recently, I watched the “FNAF IS DOOMED! The Real Truth of Five Nights at Freddy’s” video by Treesicle. I think they might have a point.

If you talk to others within the FNAF or YouTube Gaming “bubble” (as Treesicle called it), they would tell you Five Nights at Freddy’s is an important and game-changing game. But if you talk to people outside that bubble, they tend to look at you weird. “What is FNAF?” they say, “Is that some kind of new disease?”

If you mention Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario, most people would understand who you’re talking about. They probably wouldn’t have a great amount of details about them, but they would at least know they were video game characters.

And the Treesicle crew is right about the YouTube bubble. I’m always hearing about hundreds or thousands of people who buy the merch of people like TheOdd1sOut or It’s Alex Clark, but I never see anyone wearing the merch IRL. About the only time I see anything about YouTube Creators outside of YouTube itself is if they wrote a book.

The video continues to mention why some franchises stay around for decades while others don’t. The video starts out with character development and world building. I have to agree there isn’t much world building to FNAF. If asked by someone what FNAF is, I’d say, “You play as a security guard who’s trying to survive not being killed by pizzeria animatronics.” There isn’t much to say about who the characters are, what they want, the world at large, or anything else.

The Treesicle people continue to talk about FNAF being a mystery. They mention how people love a mystery; but eventually, they want it solved. It’s fun trying to solve a mystery yourself. (Why do you think game theory, or just theory in general, YouTube channels are so popular?) The problem is after a while the audience would like to know if they are right. FNAF has been going on since 2014 with little to no information about “the truth.” By now, people want to know why the animatronics are after security guards, how did they come to life, and so on. There’s a lot of theories on YouTube but not a lot of answers.

Next, they talk about the fact FNAF is a horror game. They show statistics that horror is not that popular of a genre. It makes sense. The first time you see a horror movie or experience a horror game, you’re nervous and jumpy. The first time that ax murderer jumps out from behind the rosebush, you scream, jump, and gasp. The second time, you might jump a little because you forgot about the scare; but by the tenth time, you aren’t reacting at all. It’s hard to be spooked when you know exactly when the surprise is coming.

Another nail in the FNAF coffin is the game’s randomness. There doesn’t seem to be any skill involved. In the Mario games, you can gain platforming skills. You can learn timing on jumps; you can learn strategy (like choosing to toss that turtle shell at the right moment in order to cause a chain reaction). But, in FNAF a lot of it comes down to luck. Is Freddy going to come for you? Is Freddy even going to move that night?

For example, in a Mario level there might be a red warp pipe that takes you to a coin room. If you replay the level, the red warp pipe will still take you to the coin room. You could play the level 80 times and the red warp pipe will take you to the coin room. If it was a random game, one time the red warp pipe takes you to the coin room, but the next time the warp pipe doesn’t work; the next time, it might take you to a lava room.

Finally, the Treesicle team talks about the games and shows that do stick around. Most of them are adventure based. Again, this makes sense. Look at Captain America. What is his goal? Battle evil. There is always going to be some new evil to fight. What is the goal of Ash in Pokémon? Catch ’em all, to become the very best like no one ever was, and make friends. Can he ever do it? Can he really “catch them all”? Can he ever be “the best”? And you can always make new friends. The goals of the franchises that stick around are general enough that the characters never reach their goal, but specific enough that the audience feels like the character is making headway. Captain America will never defeat evil, but he can defeat the Red Skull. Now, look at FNAF. What is the goal? Survive five nights. You did that…now what? It makes for a great standalone game but not a series.

So, my word of advice to any game maker or author or screenwriter is if you want to make a series with staying power, you need a developed world with characters who’s goals are just vague enough that the character will never accomplish them but defined enough that it seems like they are accomplishing them. If you do have a mystery series, you need to solve the mystery relatively quickly (probably within a couple episodes/issues at most) then move on to the next mystery. Look at the mystery book classics, the mystery was solved by the end of the novel. Look at mystery TV shows, the case is usually solved by the end of the episode; they don’t leave it unsolved for five years.

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