1. Scott Cawthon Fnaf Teasers
2. Animdude (FW) | Five Nights At Freddy's Wiki | Fandom

The latest tweets from @scottcawthonl.

On January 21, Scott Cawthon’s Five Nights at Freddy’s World (FNaF World), the surprisingly light-hearted role-playing followup to the popular horror series, was released on Steam, ahead of its announced February 19th release date. User reception was generally positive, but the drastic shift in style and tone left some fans confused, leading to an 87 percent user review rating. Not satisfied with an aggregated score of “very positive”, Cawthon pulled the game from Steam, promising to update it with new features and release it for free on Game Jolt once it was ready.

In a post on Steam, Cawthon explained that his own excitement led him to release the game too early. “I got too eager to show the things that were finished,” wrote Cawthon. “to a community that I’ve enjoyed and respected for over a year and a half now- I’m sorry.” It’s a remarkably apologetic measure to take such drastic steps in response to what is still a high rating, like a straight A student begging for forgiveness after bringing home a B+. But it says something about both how highly Cawthon regards the opinions of his players, and what that’s meant for his career and his personal life.

This is something that Cawthon talks about in a 2014 interview with Christian nerd culture website Geeks Under Grace.Turnsoutthis recent commotion with FNaF World is only the latest in a history of Cawthon drastically altering his work to appease his fans. While some game creators get by with ignoring or outright antagonizing fan reception, to Cawthon, his relationship with his audience seems to be the most important part of his work.

The interview was conducted shortly after the release of the first Five Nights At Freddy’s (2014), the inspiration of which Cawthon explained came from criticism of his previous game, Chipper and Sons Lumber Co(2013). “I had made a family friendly game about a beaver before this, but it was criticized online; people said the main character looked like a scary animatronic,” explained Cawthon. “I went into a pretty deep depression…Then something in me snapped and I thought to myself that I bet I could make something a lot scarier than that!”

In this instance, Scott’s tendency to listen to criticism lead him to mainstream acclaim. However, before the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s, this same strong reaction to how his games were received also had him questioning his career path and faith. A devout Christian, Cawthon had gotten his start in game development making Christian adventure games. Among these was Pilgrim’s Progress (2012), an adaptation of the 1678 religious allegory of the same name. Perhaps more notable is The Desolate Hope (2012), a more original game that combined sidescrolling elements with top-down Zelda-style dungeons and Final Fantasy-esque boss battles.

The game’s world featured a dark, brooding, and twisted industrial landscape with small clusters of life being suppressed under robotic outgrowths that sprung from the ground like tumors, almost like a prototypical version of the horror on display in Five Nights at Freddy’s, in which uncanny animatronics stuff unlucky players into mechanical suits that snuff out their lives and humanity all at once. It was provocative stuff. And when taken alongside the game’s plot, which focused on rescuing a fetus being used as a scientific specimen, it drew ire from some players, who interpreted it as condemnation of abortion. “The game places a very high value on human life, even at its smallest,” said Scott. However, he also clarified that “The game itself was not designed with abortion specifically in mind.” Still, even with TheDesolate Hope’s ambitions, it failed to meet Cawthon’s goals.

“Despite good reviews, my Christian projects were all financial failures,” he explained. “I came to a point where I was very disillusioned and frustrated with God…actually it was more like a broken heart. I felt like I’d squandered so many years of my life.” Elaborating on this crisis of faith, he added “Either God didn’t exist, or God hated me. I didn’t know which was worse…I decided to change careers, at times pursuing web design, then computer programming, even truck driving.”

After having his life insurance policy cancelled when his insurance provider caught wind of suicidal thoughts he had shared with his doctor, Scott decided to go before God and ask for him to channel his power through him, to use his earthly body. Drawn back to game development as a result of this, surprisingly enough with a secular project this time around, Scott began work on Five Nights at Freddy’s. “I felt drawn back to games again, but not Christian games anymore,” he explained. “It’s not that I wanted to leave the Christian market, I just didn’t feel ‘led’ to make another Christian game.”

This brings us up-to-date to the Scott Cawthon that most people have come to know through his Five Nights At Freddy’s series. And so, as much as FNaF World seemed like a departure for the man known for those popular horror games, it was actually more of a return to Cawthon’s previously ambitious nature, hitting similar adventure tones to and matching the art style of The Desolate Hope and Chipper and Sons. It reads like Cawthon attempting to not only go back to his roots, but redeem them, finally showing critics that a game in this style could work.

Which is why it’s so disheartening to see him dismiss it as a failure. If FNAF World was Scott’s attempt to vindicate himself as an artist, then seeing it flop is akin to seeing Chipper and Sons torn apart. If a success, FNAF World might have allowed Cawthon to put his old demons to bed and feel more comfortable showing us more of his dream projects. Ideas that might not have appealed to everybody, but would have shown us more of the man behind the game. As it stands, it is yet another entry in a cycle of criticism-and-redemption that seems to leave Cawthon attempting to please others more than himself. This self-flagellation is a remarkably Christian take on game development, and while it has motivated him a number of times, it’s clear that it has taken its toll.

Scott Cawthon Fnaf Teasers

Read the full interview over at Geeks Under Grace.

Animdude (FW) | Five Nights At Freddy's Wiki | Fandom

FNaF World is an indierole-playingvideo game created by Scott Cawthon. It is the first official spin-off to the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on January 21, 2016 and Android on January 12, 2017, but came with unfinished gameplay and a large amount of bugs, leading to bad reception and ultimately the decision for the game's removal from digital storefronts. On February 8, 2016, the game was updated, and re-released as freeware on Game Jolt free of charge.

Gameplay[edit]

The player has two modes to play in: Adventure and Fixed Party. The game also has two difficulty levels to choose from, Normal and Hard. The player starts by choosing two parties consisting of four characters each. The starter characters, the original and toy versions of the first main games characters, can all be swapped in and out of the party. As the player continues, they collect more characters to place in their party, with there being 40 characters available in total from across the first four games. Along the way, a character known as Fredbear will give the player tips on what to do next. These tips frequently break the fourth wall due to Fredbear's seeming awareness of the situation he is placed in.

The gameplay consists of exploring through the game world and accessing new areas.^[1] Once new areas are revealed and a special button is pressed in them, the player can use 'jumping' to teleport between each area through an overworld map. Initially, the world was depicted in a 2D 8-bit style, but as of Version 1.2 released in May 2016, the world has been redesigned into that of a fully animated 3D style (it is technically 2D art). Many enemy characters can be found throughout the game, each exclusive to their own area, which can be battled with. Upon defeating an enemy, the player will gain experience points and 'Faz Tokens', which are used to buy upgrades such as chips and bytes to aid the player during the game.

Meanwhile, the battles against enemies, which are completely random (with the exception of boss battles), are conducted in a separate 3D styled (again still technically 2d) playing field. In battles, the player characters are on the right-hand side, while the enemies are on the left-hand side. Each character has a HP meter located at the top right corner; by sustaining damages, the meter decreases until it reaches zero, which induces a KO (represented by a gravestone replacing the knocked out character) unless the player selects a resurrection command available on select characters. For each turn, the player is given choices for each character and must choose one of their three commands, which differ depending on the characters. The commands have different color tags and have different impacts, including healing the team (pink), providing status buffs (white), single-target attacks (orange), area attacks (red), poisonous attacks (green), and possible instant-kill attacks (black), among others. Once a turn is used, the player has to wait for some time until the next turn begins. The player can also swap the current party with the reserve at any time. After each battle, all characters, including the knocked out ones, are restored to full health.

The GameJolt version changed the world graphics from 2D to 3D. As of Version 1.2, the player is able to travel to a new land, to play the minigames of characters whose codes are being recycled for other games to unlock new characters after the player completes the sets of minigames in a range of modes. These include 'Foxy Fighters', 'Chica's Magic Rainbow', 'Foxy.EXE' and 'FNAF 57: Freddy in Space'.

Setting[edit]

FNaF World takes place in a world inhabited by enemies and various characters from the Five Nights at Freddy's series, who live in different biomes, that include a snowy plain, deep forests, a graveyard, lake, carnival, and caves. There also exists an inner dimension known as the 'Flipside', the world's game code, in which there are several glitches that enable travel to otherwise unreachable places.^[1] The Flipside has four layers in total, although going beyond the third level is a point of no return, leading to an area with a character named Old Man Consequences. Update 2 added the Halloween Update area, from which various minigames can be accessed along with the final area: a toxic maze where the final boss of Update 2 is located.

Development[edit]

FNaF World was first announced on September 15, 2015, in a Steam post by Cawthon.^[2] Later, a trailer was uploaded to YouTube, depicting the characters of the four previous games as cute.^[3] The announcement was considered to be a hoax due to similar PR actions taken by Cawthon, however, it was not disproven until its release. Cawthon noted that the game is a spin-off, considering the main arc of Five Nights at Freddy's completed with the fourth game. Though originally planned for release on February 2, 2016, Cawthon rescheduled the release to January 22, 2016, but eventually launched yet another day earlier, on January 21, 2016, respectively, releasing it digitally through Steam.^[4]

Upon release, community and critics criticized the game for missing key features, being unstable and generally unfinished, which Cawthon later apologized for, stating that '[he] got too eager to show the things that were finished, that [he] neglected to pay attention to the things that weren't.'^[5] He agreed with the community that he had rushed the release, and that the game's rough state was unacceptable.^[6] Cawthon stated that he would be working hard to get the game in order, but this eventually led to Cawthon temporarily taking the game off Steam, offering refunds to everyone who bought it.^[7] It was later announced that, once the game would be patched further, it would be released for free, first to Game Jolt, and stay free from that point on.^[8]

— Scott Cawthon on Steam, regarding the discontinuation of FNaF World ^[9]

On February 8, 2016, an updated version was released to GameJolt as freeware, also featuring a new overworld and other new features.^[10]

On May 13, 2016, a second update to FNaF World was released, featuring new characters and a new map, as well as voice acting.^[11][12][13]

On January 12, 2017, FNaF World was released on Android, but was removed the next day. On January 31, 2017, Cawthon dispelled any rumors of the highly speculated 'Update 3', saying that no further updates will be made to the game. He expressed his dissatisfaction of the game, stating that most mistakes in development were made 'very early', and that attempting to better the game would 'be remaking the game from scratch'. He later removed the game from Steam.^[14]

Reception[edit]

FNaF World received generally mixed reception among critics and community, with many YouTube gamers responsible for launching the franchise to its high popularity, such as Markiplier, opting not to play it, most likely changing how critics responded to the spin-off.^[15] However, Angelo M. D'Argenio from The Escapist gave the game a decent review, stating that 'Five Nights at Freddy's World is a retro parody JRPG that feels incomplete now, but is steadily getting better as patches come out', giving FNaF World a score of 3/5. This, however, doesn't make it as popular as FNAF's other games.^[16] The Gaming Ground also gave a satisfactory review, giving the game a 3.5/5.^[17]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'Five Nights At Freddy's World Complete Gameplay Walkthrough'. One Angry Gamer. January 23, 2016. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
2. ^'Steam Community :: Group Announcements :: Five Nights at Freddy's 4'. steamcommunity.com. September 15, 2015. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
3. ^Klepek, Patrick (September 16, 2015). 'Five Nights At Freddy's Creator Is Making An RPG'. Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
4. ^Prescott, Shaun (January 21, 2016). 'Five Nights At Freddy's World has released early'. PC Gamer. Future US. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
5. ^Chalk, Andy (January 22, 2016). 'Five Nights at Freddy's creator apologizes for ugly FNAF World launch'. PC Gamer. Future US. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
6. ^Frank, Allegra (January 22, 2016). 'Five Nights at Freddy's World launched 'too early,' missing key features'. Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
7. ^Rowen, Nic (January 25, 2016). 'FNaF World pulled from Steam, refunds being made available for all'. Destructoid. ModernMethod. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
8. ^Pereira, Christ (January 27, 2016). 'Five Nights at Freddy's RPG Pulled From Sale, Will Be Free Upon Return'. GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
9. ^The quoted post has been deleted by Scott Cawthon
10. ^O'Connor, Alice (February 12, 2016). 'Five Nights At Freddy's World Re-Released For Free'. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
11. ^Groux, Christopher (March 30, 2016). ''FNaF World' Update 2: New Teaser Shows Planes, 'Five Nights At Freddy's' Character Sprites'. Design & Trend. IBT Media. Archived from the original on May 20, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
12. ^Groux, Christopher (May 4, 2016). ''FNaF World' Update 2 Release Date And New Character Revealed By 'Five Nights At Freddy's' Dev'. Design & Trend. IBT Media. Archived from the original on May 17, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
13. ^Groux, Christopher (May 13, 2016). ''FNaF World' Update 2 Released: The Free 'Five Nights At Freddy's' RPG Gets More Characters!'. Design & Trend. IBT Media. Archived from the original on January 13, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
14. ^'Game over: Saying goodbye to FNAF World'. Nerdvana. January 31, 2017. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
15. ^Hernandez, Patricia (January 26, 2016). 'Five Nights At Freddy's RPG Pulled Off Steam Due To Bad Reviews'. Kotaku Australia. Allure Media. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
16. ^D'Argenio, Angelo M. (January 25, 2016). 'Five Nights at Freddy's World - Broken Animatronic Mascots'. The Escapist. Defy Media. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
17. ^thegg.net, The Gaming Ground (February 20, 2016). 'FNaF World PC review'. (TGG). Retrieved April 18, 2017.

External links[edit]