A frightful point-and-click game that’s not for the faint of heart!

So, what has made Five Nights At Freddy’s (FnAF, in short) so incredibly successful? It’s actually not that hard to tell when we consider how people nowadays (especially young people) tend to love edgy horror-themed content. Many people who love gore-oriented material also seem to have a soft spot for this game for some reason. Nonetheless, this game offers much more than gore.

You see, this is not, in the strictest sense, a gore game, but it does give that vibe. You don’t need to show off guts and blood every five minutes like some of those lame slashers do in order to instill genuine horror. I find it much more thrilling to have the audience “figure the gore out” for themselves. It’s for this reason that Five Nights At Freddy’s is, in my book, one of the best indie horror experiences available.

You are no hero in this game. You assume the role of a security guard working your first night shifts at “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza”. This restaurant has four animatronics initially programmed for entertainment purposes.

However, they turn into bloodthirsty demons with a sinister demeanor during the night. Your original task is to ensure the safety of the animatronic. Everything starts to take an ugly turn when you are warned - through a voice message left by “phone guy” and some newspaper clips - that these robotic creatures have not behaved very well in the past. 

Then, after listening to that less-than-welcoming “greeting” from the company, your focus shifts completely. Your main goal now is to spend the night trying to prevent these horrors from entering the office and turning you into a human kebab filling.

During the course of the game, you must keep your eyes on the security camera feeds at all times to track the animatronics’ movement. They all have distinct movement patterns, and, as if that wasn’t enough, these patterns are not readily shown on the screen, increasing the tension exponentially. What’s even more disturbing is that the feeds are barely lit and exceedingly grainy, making it much more challenging to see what’s going on, inducing insane bursts of adrenaline rush.

The other thing you have to watch out for is energy. For some reason (convenience, probably), the facility operates on limited energy. You have to watch out so that the power is not depleted. If this happens, the cameras will turn off, the lights will go out, and the main animatronic, Freddy Fazbear, will appear with lights flashing from its terrifying eyes to do, well, whatever it is it’s set out to do (maul you alive, perchance?) You’d have to endure all this terrible trial for five nights (hence the title) in order to beat the game. If you manage to make it till 6 AM, you’re safe!

This brings up a couple of questions from a nitpicky critic’s perspective. First question is: Why is there limited electricity? This doesn’t seem to be explained by the “phone guy” or anyone else, though I imagine it must be because of budget cuts? I’m not sure how that works. Do they run on solar power? In that case, I figure they may need a good chunk of solar panels to keep all those “cool” gadgets running fine and dandy.

Second question: Why is my character (Mike Schmidt) not quitting that darn job after that harrowing first evening? Heck, I would’ve left that overly risky job the first minute that dude on the telephone started uttering his first “warnings”.

I totally understand that not everything has to make perfect sense in a horror story. Still, it would have been nice if these gameplay elements were given a more convincing justification story-wise. For example, a general outage in the area could justify the limited power issue. Another thing that might have worked better from a story perspective is to give the main character some motivation for remaining in that job (e.g., he’s an undercover police officer investigating the place or something similar.)

Lastly, I would have appreciated it if this game offered at least two more hours of game time. As it stands, it’s a bit too short for my liking. For a $3 game, I certainly expected a bit more content.

Despite its shortcomings, Five Nights At Freddy’s remains one of the most intense horror games you could play on mobile and a candidate for the best horror game of the last decade. If you crave horror games and want more than just jump scares and gory gore, I urge you to check this one out!

Don’t be afraid to leave your thoughts in the comments below. Don’t worry; we won’t bite…