Five Nights at Freddy's 1 (FNAF)

Genre:	Survival Horror, Point and click
Release:	2014
Platforms:	MS Windows, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, Oculus Quest
Developers:	ScottGames, Steel Wool Studios, Illumix
Publishers:	ScottGames, Clickream LLC USA, Illumix
Analysis by:	Chaowei Arakawa, Charisse Ann de Leon, Gabrielle Gerber & Sofiia Yurchenko

1. Gameplay

The Five Nights at Freddy's series consists of horror-themed video games in which the player is usually a night-time employee at a location connected with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a fictional children's restaurant that takes inspiration from family pizza chains like Chuck E. Cheese's and ShowBiz Pizza Place. The restaurant has life-size animatronic characters that perform at children's parties. The animatronics wander the restaurant at night and the guard is instructed to watch over them. To progress through the games, the player must guard themselves against animatronics with a variety of tools. Also every night the player has a phone call. This is an important piece for people who are interested in the story behind it all. The phone calls also explain to the player how the game works. They are from a man who worked your shifts before you, and is finishing up his last week. In Five Nights at Freddy's, the player can control the two security doors connecting their office to the adjacent hallways as a barrier against animatronics in the vicinity. Each night, the player has a power supply that depletes faster when a tool is used. If the power goes out, the player can no longer use any tools and is defenseless against the animatronics.

Five Nights at Freddy's - Trailer: https://youtu.be/Ws-yd9YPfdE

2. Sound

The basic mood of the game is rather dark. As a player, you have no possibility to move or protect yourself, nor do you have much information about what is happening. Therefore, you have to rely on the audio and visuals of the game. Five Nights at Freddy's consists of advantageous audio, immersive sounds and detrimental audio. The advantageous audio helps to navigate where the animatronics are, when the cameras are not working. The immersive sounds are used for atmosphere, mood and what the game world would sound like. The detrimental audio is used for the horror and unease of the game.

2.1 Advantageous Audio

Audio Clues

In the game, you have to rely heavily on the visual and auditory. The player can monitor the animatronics through the surveillance cameras. However, there are rooms or moments when the cameras do not work, so you have to rely on the sounds.

An example would be the rattling of kitchen objects, so the player knows someone is in the kitchen even if the camera there is not working.

Animatronic in the Kitchen	chicainkitchen.wav
Freddy's Laugh	freddylaugh.wav

2.2 Immersive Sounds

Diegetic Sound Effects

These sound effects are used to help the player immerse into the game world. These are general sounds connected to actions. Sounds the game world would produce.

Camera glitching	cameraglitching_anematroniclookingatit.wav
Door Lights buzzing, On & Off	door_lights_buzzing_turnon.wav
Camera panning	camerapanning.wav
Door closing	doorclosing.wav
Animatronic Running	foxyrunning_chasingafteryou.wav
Animatronic knocking	foxyknocking_foxybehinddoor.wav

Non-Diegetic Sound Effect

It is a sound that is not really realistic or organic in this world. It is a feature for a jump scare and to alert the player that danger is near.

Bonnie or Chica (Animatronics) appear at your Door	theyarehere_standingoutsidedoor.wav

2.3 Detrimental audio

„Muddied“ Sounds

These sounds are part of the immersive sounds and prevent the player from perceiving his surroundings properly. A good example is the phone call from night 4, where the call interrupts important sounds like Freddy coming near and the knocking on the door. Also the fan, which remains on the whole night and interferes with other sounds.

Camera glitching	cameraglitching2.wav
Night 4 phone call	4nightcall.wav
Fan On and buzzing background	fan.wav

Background Sounds

These sound effects are responsible for the ambience. An uncomfortable, dark and empty feeling arises. It also reinforces the theme that the game takes place in a children's restaurant.

The spontaneous organ playing and the happy singing of an animatronic reinforce the idea of a children's restaurant. However, it also makes the whole thing very eerie because it is night. The player then feels as if he is in a children's nightmare.

Ambiance 1	ambiance.wav
Ambiance 2	ambiance2_theygettingcloser.wav
Circus Organ, played randomly	mascot_tune.wav
Foxy singing	foxysong.wav

Vaguely Vocals and Sounds„

Adding to the horror and discomfort are the distorted, unintelligible sounds. They are humanoid sound effects. They are not human and neither are they simply sounds.

For example, when an animatronic is eventually in the room with the player, you can hear a very loud and close eerie inhaling and exhaling. It is a close recording and indicates that the end is near.

Bonnie / Chica (Animatronics) right in front of the door angry	itsme_chicabonnieangry_night5_6_7.wav
Night 5 Phone call	5nightcall.wav
Animatronic in your Office	theyarein_bonniechicasnuckin.wav
Freddy's laugh	freddylaugh.wav

2.4 Endgame Sounds

Survived a day

Each night ends at 6:00 a.m. The screen goes black and in the middle the time changes from 5 am to 6 am simulating the clock. You hear bells ringing and children's happy screams, congratulations, you have survived the night. Then as soon as you start a new day, the music changes and becomes scary again, making your blood run cold.

6 am, Clock	6am.wav
Children cheering	whenitturns6am.wav
Sitting Idle, New day	sitting_idle.wav

Death

If you fail to keep an eye on all the animatronics, one of them attacks you and you die, the Game Over screen appears and you have to start the night over again. There is also a secret character in the game — Golden Freddy. There is a 1 in 10,000 chance that instead of returning to the main menu, Golden Freddy's jumpscare can appear after the Game Over screen, resulting in the game being closed.

Animatronic scream	animatronics_scream.wav
Golden Freddy scream	goldenfreddy_scream.wav
Game Over Screen	gameoverscreen.wav

Last day

On the last night, when you run out of energy because it is very limited, everything gradually shuts down and then the player sits in complete darkness and silence, after a few seconds you start to see Freddy's glowing blinking eyes and hear the creepy sound of his music box. There is nothing you can do but sit and wait until either Freddy jumps on you and you die or you survive and a black screen with a clock appears.

Power runs out	powerrunsout.wav
Freddy appears	freddytune_poweroutfreddycomes.wav

2.5 Narrative / Calls

Every night starts with a call from a former employee. He does the introduction to the „game“ and mentions some information about the history of the game. However, he is not much of a help to the player. The calls bring more creepiness into the game.

Night 1 phone call	1nightcall.wav
Night 2 phone call	2nightcall.wav
Night 3 phone call	3nightcall.wav
Night 4 phone call	4nightcall.wav
Night 5 phone call	5nightcall.wav

3. Conclusion

We enjoyed the game Five Nights at Freddy's, you can name it basic in the horror genre. It's quite scary because of the spooky, moody music, the sounds, the scary characters, the location — a children's pizzeria, all these things create a great creepy atmosphere. Depends on the player, if you don't play horror games because it's really scary for you, then the game will be very vibe and grisly. It has good graphics, it has a story, interesting gameplay, because with each night it gets harder and harder for you to survive.

Of the minuses, the player can't walk but just sits in place and turns his head in different directions. It would be really interesting to be able to get up, walk around the location, look at the animatronics, run away from them if they see you. It would have been nice to have the choice to move or sit where you are and look at the cameras. It has pretty primitive approach to scaring the player — full screen scrimmer and screaming.

For lovers of scary games and for players with less experience in horror games, this game will be very terrifying indeed, especially if played at night.

4. Comparison with Outlast

4.1 General Comparison

1. Space. In FNAF the player has limited space, he only sees his room and a static view of other rooms through the camera. In Outlast, the player has access to multiple rooms, also at the beginning you can fully see the psych hospital and landscape.

2. Movement. In FNAF the player can only sit, turn his head and watch the cameras. In Outlast, the player has the ability to move around quite freely, crawling through vents and sewers.

3. Screamers. FNAF has a much lower variety of screamers than Outlast. In FNAF you will be scared with different variety of sounds, but the screamer of animatronic is always the same, it can be different characters, but they just jump on the player and that's all. In Outlast except for the sounds you are scared by different things, dead bodies, crazy people jumping on you, etc.

4. Death. In FNAF the player dies once and you have no way to escape and also no death animation, only the Game Over screen appears. In Outlast before the player dies he has to be hit several times and he can run away and when you are dying there is an animation of the player falling down, spitting blood and closing his eyes.

5. Cruelty. Outlast looks more violent than FNAF, there is blood, dead bodies, damaged bodies. It is more realistic in terms of the game visuals than FNAF.

4.2 Sound Comparison

Ambiance/Atmosphere

In FNAF, the atmosphere is based on an acute, monotonous noise that is coming from the fan, which is played throughout the game. This tends to the point that the player blends it out while playing through the game leaving him/her in a nervous state. In Outlast, the player's emotions are played by the overlapping and/or over saturated sounds. It gives the player the emotion of being anxious most of the time.

Both games use the opposite techniques to keep the player nervous and on the edge. FNAF is relying on the silence of the situation while Outlast is overloading one with multiple noises.

User Interface

The transitions into and out of the UIs in both games are accompanied by sound effects. The background sound changes when the player is in the UI mode.

Player Character

The characters in both games don't talk. The only difference with Outlast is that the player pants, screams, and react to a situation he is currently in.

Nonplayable Characters

In Outlast, the NPCs interacts and/or communicate with the character while in FNAF, they don't.

Voice Over

Voice overs in both games are present. In FNAF, it is portrayed by an invisible boss who calls the player through the phone. In Outlast, voice overs are portrayed by the NPCs in the game.

Jump scare

In Outlast, the jump scares usually happen very spontaneously and can only be expected when it is obviously shown in a particular setting. The jump scares are accompanied by loud screams in combination with high pitched noises and/or sounds. In FNAF, it's usually declared with either running footsteps or a laughter the player hears from afar. So the player knows that something is coming. However, both games use loud screams and noises.