Why FNAF 1 and 6 are the SCARIEST in the series | Review of Design

I mean I don't if you know what to expect then four times then it's kind of like over go away I dont know This clip of Felix Kjellberg or as he's known online Pewdiepie. Shows his initial reaction to the Fourth Five Nights at Freddy's game. This clip went Viral because of his controversial reaction claiming that the Five nights at Freddy's series no longer scared him stating the jumpscares got old. But what was the real reason from a gameplay perspective that he was no longer scared of this iconic horror series? Pewdiepies initial reasoning for him being immune to said jumpscare is because of repetition basically saying if you know what to expect after four times it loses its impact, but I am here to argue that his reaction has more to do with the gameplay of the Fnaf series over time and less about the repetition of the jumpscares. To show you what I mean let me show you how the Fnaf games systems have progressed over the years. Starting with the original the player would progress through mostly trial and error to find the optimal strategy of checking on Foxy, then checking the doors and repeating this till the night ended. The only problem being that in harder stages you had a small chance of losing to foxy or golden Freddy no matter what you did. Now this system which sometimes threw skill out the window was met with some controversy, because as a player the game just deciding when it wants you to die is kind of unfair. Scott Cawthon the creator of the series acknowledged this and made an unfailing optimal strategy in the sequel, and although it was hard to pull off once mastered nothing could harm you. With the third installment of the series, the same system of trial and error until the unbeatable strategy was found was used for Fnaf 3. Yet with the strategy being easier to pull off than the previous games Scott was bombarded with reviews calling the game far too easy. Anxious about the next release Scott decided to try to reimagine the series in a grand finale by changing the core mechanics and setting of the franchise. Yet whether aware of it or not he remained trapped in the same overall design philosophy of trial and error until the inevitable optimal strategy. Surprisingly instead of being called easy, this game was met with reviews saying the series just wasn't scary anymore. And Aware of it or not most of those players sense of fear was just now just replaced with boredom from repeating the same tactic of getting jumpscared to learn information then figuring out the optimal strategy, and as Pewdiepie said if you know what to expect after four times it loses its impact. Scott hearing about this decided that this was not a good Finale for his series, and went on to create the fifth installment Sister location in which he changed everything except the story, and although the game had a good narrative he clearly didn't know what he was doing with the gameplay. By having each day consist of various unrelated minigames instead of a concept that is developed over time sister locations gameplay lacked any depth. Scott receiving this criticism and that of the past games made a free extra mode for Sister location called the custom night, which kept the gameplay of the first four games with one key difference. It told you what each enemy did on the beginning screen. Thus eliminating the trial and error aspect from before and just became,, well repetition of another optimal strategy. At this point, I believe Scott realized what was growing repetitive with his games not the jumpscares, story, or location, but the optimal unfailing strategy. The problem with it being that when you have a strategy that doesn't fail you know exactly what will happen eliminating any fear of the unknown. With this new knowledge Scott developed the supposed final entry in the series Freddy Fazbears Pizzarea Simulator now I have a whole video analyzing all of this games phases and how they work together, but what I want to focus on now is the defense phase where unlike the previous entries in the series there is no optimal strategy. In fact, the gameplay consists of choosing what to do in each randomly generated scenario, and although that may mean an animatronic starts here instead of here it will still affect what you decide to do. What I'm getting at is in this final installment there is no longer one optimal strategy rather for a given situation there are multiple that CAN work but the randomly generated elements keeping you from using on strategy over and over. For example you can try to distract two animatronics with your audio device and try to keep the other two distracted with your flashlight. BUT according to Scott himself the audio device may not always work. Same with shutting off your equipment it only keeps an animatronic from getting in 90% of the time. With this philosophy of having multiple systems that have a high chance of working yet at some times won't you cannot guarantee that using the same strategy over and over will ensure you victory. On top of this you won't always know what your enemy is doing. And isn't that what fear is not knowing enough information to feel safe? And that's why I think the first entry in the series is also quite terrifying, because in only these two games you don't have any way to guarantee victory. With the difference between the two being in the first you had one strategy that may or may not work and in the last you have several constantly changing strategies that may or may not work. Having no way of guaranteeing your plan will work I believe is the key to designing a good horror game. By the way If you want to hear me talk more about Pizzarea Simulators design I made a video just about that if you click right here! If you've already seen that then consider clicking my logo here to subscribe to my channel to be notified of my upcoming analysis of Undertale, Cuphead, and Bendy and the ink machine on my quest to finally answer the question of WHY they are so popular. Regardless of your choice have a wonderful day and I'll catch you all next time!

Channel: Etra Games

Views: 4,241,625

Keywords: fnaf6, freddy fazbears pizza simulator, fnaf6 game, fnaf design, five nights at freddy's, five nights at freddy's six, game theory, theory, game design, design, analysis, fnaf theory, fnaf6 theory, fnaf2, fnaf3, fnaf4, sister location, five nights at freddy's 2, five nights at freddy's 3, five nights at freddy's 4

Id: PIqeWLZ3-mY

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 21 2017