Codex Gamicus
Register
Advertisement


The animatronic characters here do tend to get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No. If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for 20 years, and I never had a bath, I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too.
~ Former night watchman, recorded messages

Five Nights at Freddy's is a 2014 Indie built survival horror video game by Scott Cawthon, for computer platforms. Five Night's at Freddy's was originally released on July 24, 2014 onto various video game download sites, but was later added to Steam through Steam Greenlight on August 18. The game is also available on Android and iOS mobile platforms.

Plot

You are the new Night Watchman at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a children's restaurant known for it's animatronic animal band. On your first day you get a call from the previous night watchmen, who tells you a little bit about your job and what to be aware of. He tells you that the animatronics are not turned off during the night because it results in a glitch in their system, so they are instead left in a "free roam" mode during the night hours. This is a problem as though the animatronics recognize humans during the day as customers, during the night they recognize you as an animatronic without a costume. If the animatronics find you, they will thereby "repair" you, and stuff your body into an animatronic costume, which due to the built in wiring, crossbeams, and additional animatronic devices, would kill you, painfully.

Gameplay

Five Nights at Freddy's has the player sit inside of the security room at the back of the restaurant, and is played through a point and click perspective. The player's goal is to survive each 6 hour shift (real time: 8 1/2 minutes), until the end of the week and get paid.

An animatronic outside the security room

The player monitors the entire restaurant through the security cameras on a laptop in the security room, where they can view all 11 rooms in the restaurant. As long as the player looks at the animatronics through the monitors they won't move around, but if the player looks into a different room or closes the laptop, they will move from room to room and ultimately end up in the security room. The animatronics can reach the room through two entrances on both sides of the room, each door has a light outside that can be turned on so the player can see if an animatronic is standing by the door, otherwise the entire hallway is pitch black. Each entrance can be sealed off by an electric security door, if an animatronic is at the door, the player can close the door and lock the animatronic out, leaving it to wander around to another part of the restaurant. The entire security room is minimally powered to reduce costs, meaning the laptop, lights, and doors slowly drain your overall power, indicated in the lower-left corner of the screen that starts at 100%. If the power runs out, the entire room will turn pitch black and the player will lose control of the doors, lights, and security cameras, and Freddy will come to kill the player personally. The player's ultimate goal is to thereby monitor the animatronics and keep themselves safe, while conserving their power, until the shift is over.

Five Night's at Freddy's has three different game modes to choose from.

Five Nights

The regular game mode, where the player must survive a total of five nights against the animatronics. The player can either start a New Game, and start from the beginning at day 1, or Continue on the night they most recently died on. Upon completing all five nights the player will be given a pay check for $120.

Sixth Night

An additional game mode, the sixth night has the player fight off the animatronics another night in what is the hardest level. Upon completing the sixth night, the player is given a bonus of $0.50 for their overtime, giving them a $120.50 paycheck.

Custom Night

Upon completing the sixth night, the player is asked to come back for a seventh night, however this time the player has control over the animatronics and can determine their individual difficulty settings. Each animatronic can be set to a difficulty of 0-20, with 0-2 being easy, 3-6 being medium, 7-12 being hard, and 13-20 being extreme.

Characters

There are four animatronics in the restaurant, Freddy the Bear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken, and Foxy the Pirate Fox. Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy are all located at the front of the restaurant on the show stage, with Foxy located in a shut down section of the restaurant known as "Pirate's Cove".


Bonnie the bunny headshot

Bonnie the Bunny

Bonnie is located on the stage next to Chica and Freddy, and is usually the first animatronic to start moving. Bonnie slowly walks around the restaurant, and can only attack the player through the left entrance of the security room. He returns to the office more frequently than others.


Chica the chicken headshot

Chica the Chicken

Chica is located on the stage next to Bonnie and Freddy, and is usually the second to move. Chica moves similarly to Bonnie in that she walks aimlessly throughout the restaurant until finally reaching the security room. Chica always enters through the right door.


Foxy the fox headshot

Foxy the Pirate Fox

Foxy is a dysfunctional animatronic located in the now closed down section of the restaurant known as "Pirate's Cove". Foxy hides behind the curtains in Pirate's Cove, and slowly makes his way out if the player forgets to watch him or watch Pirate Cove for too long. When Foxy escapes, the player can only see him running down the left hallway for a brief moment before making it to the security room and killing the player. If the player successfully closes the door in time, Foxy will run back to Pirate's Cove and start the cycle over again. Foxy only enters through the left door of the security room.


Freddy fazbear headshot

Freddy Fazbear

The main animatronic and namesake of the restaurant and game, Freddy is located on the stage next to Chica and Bonnie and is usually the last one to start moving. Freddy acts much differently than the other animatronics, making him very unique and threatening. As explained by the former night watchman through tapes, Freddy doesn't move around much, and prefers to move around in complete darkness. Freddy very rarely approaches the player, and even when he does he moves very slowly. Freddy can be heard approaching by his laughter, which slowly grows louder as he gets closer. If and when Freddy does get to the security room he will not appear outside of either of the doors, making the hall lights useless against him. If Freddy makes it inside the security room, he will not attack in front of the player immediately like Bonnie or Chica, but will jump out and attack from beside the player a few seconds later.

Hidden Story

Five Nights at Freddy's contains a secret story that can be revealed through newspaper articles viewed through the security cameras.

Mobile Platforms

Android Icon

Five Nights at Freddy's was released onto Android devices on August 25th, and on iOS on September 11th. There are several slight gameplay differences on the mobile versions, primarily in the animatronics programmed behaviour and movements. One of the most notable features of the Android version is the in-game store, where the player can buy plushies, small plush toys of Freddy, Chica, or Bonnie, that can be put on the desk in the office, simply for aesthetic purposes. The player can also pay for a Cheat Mode, that tells the player where each animatronic is at any given time, and gives the player unlimited power.

Design & Development

Design

Five Nights at Freddy's graphics consist entirely of pre-rendered images.

Trivia

  • The voice of the former night watchman in the recorded messages was provided by Scott Cawthon, the game's creator.
  • Looking through camera 2B, the player can see a poster with Freddy's face on it, that will occasionally change to that of an eyeless "gold" version of Freddy. If the player stares at the poster and then looks away from the laptop, the "Golden Freddy" will be sitting inside the security room with them. If the player looks back at the laptop they will be safe, and the golden Freddy will go away. However if they don't look at the laptop the Gold Freddy will kill them, and thereby crash and close out the game. The only chances of this occurring are on nights 1, 3, and rarely 5.
  • Inside the security room is a poster of Freddy and the other animatronics, if you point and click on Freddy's nose in the picture it will make a honking noise.
  • The song that plays when the power runs out, in the kitchen, and when you beat the game is a custom rendition of the Carmen Overture by Bizet.
  • When playing on custom night, setting the AI difficulties to "1", "9", "8", and "7", and starting the game will result in the Golden Freddy jumpscare, and will crash and close out the game. This is a homage to the "Bite of 87", an event where one of the animatronics bit and horribly wounded a customer, as told by the former night watchmen through recorded messages.
    • This Easter egg was added in the 1.1 version of Five Nights at Freddy's by Scott in response to the countless rumours that playing the custom night on that difficulty would result in a secret ending, so he simply re-used the Golden Freddy jump scare, making it impossible to play the game on this setting.
Advertisement