Tag: hidden meaning

Five Nights at Freddy’s – In Case You Weren’t Already Afraid of Animatronics:

Posted on by in Gaming

One of the main accusations surrounding the gaming industry is that gaming communities can quickly become toxic, putting off many potential players and creating a negative view of the game, including the hard-working developers who created it. These fans adore the game in question but can be overzealous in how they try to encourage others to play it, often resulting in insults and long debates on social media about how their opinion is the only correct one. The game becomes less about its message and gameplay, instead, it is associated with its reputation – be that negative or positive. In 99% of cases, it is only a small subsection of that fan community that causes this negative reputation, whilst the others are all enthusiastic individuals, wanting to share their love of the game and the creative pieces it inspires with others. Now, whilst reading this you’ve probably had a few games come to mind. My mind immediately went to the Five Nights at Freddy’s and Undertale communities, two of the most popular indie games of the last decade.

Let’s put all that negativity aside for the moment and look at what makes these games so popular, so much so that nearly all gamers will have heard of them. I’m going to focus on the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, as that’s the game I stumbled across first, back when it first released and exploded onto the YouTube gaming scene. I’ve always had a soft spot for the FNAF games, not because of the gameplay or the creepy animatronics staring at me through the camera but because of the storytelling involved in it. The simplistic horror games, created by Scott Cawthon, are infamous for their complex timelines and hidden lore. At first glance, the games don’t seem like much but the deeper you look, the more intriguing hints you find towards some overarching plot that nobody on earth seems able to fit together (not even you, MatPat).

The most recent entry in the series adds VR and also a freaky creature nicknamed GlitchTrap that dances menacingly after he kills you so that’s a thing.

You can’t deny how popular the FNAF franchise has become. From the original game, which was Scott Cawthon’s last attempt at video game development, to the VR game that was released earlier this year, there is no real area of gaming community that it has not touched – RPG’s, voice acting, spin-off books, plushies and Funko Pop’s, an endless volume of fan fiction and fan art, to entire games based off the series (though seriously, some of the fan games are phenomenal like TJOC). It is this popularity that drives part of the negativity against it since success comes alongside hate in this world. There will always be someone who doesn’t like what it and that’s fine, FNAF isn’t for everyone! However, the more popular the series, the more people will hate it just for the sake of it.

Anyways, let’s talk a bit about FNAF. If you’ve avoided this game series or just have somehow managed to hide in a cave without an internet connection, let me explain the rough premise of the series. You, the player, are a security guard on the night shift, watching over a pizza restaurant containing animal-themed animatronics that wouldn’t be out of place in a Stephen King novel. The animatronics wander around at night and if they see you, they’ll think you’re an endoskeleton and try to shove you into a suit (spoiler alert – it’ll kill you). As you may have guessed from the name of the game, you stay for five nights during which the animatronics become increasingly aggressive and if you survive, you win! The different entries in the series make use of various mechanics such as audio cues or ventilation shafts, however, in essence, all the entries follow the same formula.

Chica, I am not eating anything with you until you go wash your hands, this place is a health and safety nightmare.

However, if you simply just play through each night and survive the onslaught of jump scares, you would be doing the game a great injustice. No matter how loud the YouTube gamers scream, the gameplay of FNAF isn’t what has made it stand out as an indie game – the lore is. Any observant player of these games would notice the occasional unnerving detail in the background, from strange sounds coming from the animatronics to posters talking about missing children, to offhand comments from the guy on the phone about various incidents and risk of death. As a sucker for a mystery, it’s a franchise that I’ve kept a close eye on. Although nobody is sure what the true story is behind the game series, after all, Scott Cawthon is a wily one, the abundance of theories about these games and the real story it is trying to tell is phenomenal. This is the kind of series where the hex color of a textbox can make the difference between one timeline and another.

I think the reason that this game series intrigues so many people is the concept of things being more than they appear to the naked eye. This is a life lesson that I think we should all keep in mind, especially when it comes to the topic of mental health. It is not an obvious thing. I don’t wander around with a neon sign flashing above my head saying, “suffering from mental health conditions, please don’t upset me,” partly because that’d be ridiculously expensive to maintain and mostly because its not something that I want to advertise. Mental health is an incredibly personal thing, something that we carry with us everywhere, like a part of ourselves. You can look at someone, laughing and joking around with their friends, but have no idea that depression is standing right behind them, just waiting for the right moment.

Are those my eyes??? THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!

You never have any idea what people are going through. If someone chooses to share their pain with you, to entrust you with something so personal, they are placing a level of faith in you that you should never take for granted. They’re sharing a side of themselves with you that they keep away from the rest of the world – much like the axiom:

“The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and your family. The third face, you never show to anyone. This third face is the truest reflection of who you are.”

FNAF takes a leaf out of this book, with its own three faces. The first being the gameplay, which is what most people will see during their first impressions of the series. The second is when you begin to look deeper and uncover the lore hidden behind those terrifying animatronic faces. The final one is known only to Scott Cawthon, the creator. Whatever story he wishes for these games to tell, is for him to know and for us to merely theorize about.

Whether you choose to show your second face to someone, is entirely up to you. All I hope is that you can face your third face and understand it because we can’t learn to trust others if we can’t trust ourselves. Anyways, this was a bit of a weird one, wasn’t it? Next week, maybe we talk Life is Strange or Prey? Up to you guys!

Stay Kind,

CaitlinRC

(Also, if you haven’t seen it, I wrote a piece for CheckPoint who is a mental health charity focused on providing resources and support for gamers and the gaming community as a whole. Go check them out and my article out here: https://checkpointorg.com/what-remains-of-edith-finch-how-family-can-build-us-up-and-tear-us-down/ )

Drawn to Life – Where Scribbles Can Save The World:

Posted on by in Gaming

A profound belief of mine is that anyone can be good at anything if they put their mind to it. Growing up, I was never “gifted” at art. Neither my sister nor I were considered “artsy”, mostly sticking to crafting birthday cards or building little models out of wood and glue (much to my mum’s chagrin). At school, I was pushed away from the arts – something that I fought against, keeping my love for drama going strong and discovering the joys of backstage work. However, I lost my love for art. I dropped art at the end of Year 8, not returning to it until the end of my first year of university due to that innate fear that I wasn’t good enough to even try.

The fact I lost something that brought me so much joy for so long, is an experience that I hope no-one else will go through. It is this attitude to “not naturally born artists”, that can crush so many people’s dreams and deprive the world of the unique beauty that they would bring to it. Therefore, I think games like the Drawn to Life series, can be crucial in inspiring the future generation. For those who have never heard of these games, it’s a bit hard to explain but I think there’s a mechanic in it for everyone. The games were developed by 5th Cell, the team behind the Scribblenauts series, for the Nintendo DS. It’s sequel – known as Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter, was released in two editions for the Nintendo Wii and the DS, each version telling a different story.

If you hadn’t guessed by the title of the games, this series involves drawing. In both games, you take on the role of the “Creator” – the god-like entity that watches over the world and cares for its residents. The citizens of the world, known as the Raposa, are humanoid creatures crossed with rabbits? It’s a bit hard to tell but they have cute ears. When you load the game up for the first time, you hear the story of how the world was created, how you created the Book of Life, which contained all the designs for your creations. The game gets you to draw forests, the world and even the people themselves. Then you hear Mari, a young Raposa, begging you for help. The darkness has almost consumed the entire village and you are their last hope.

If you don’t want to help these little cuties, then you suck 😛

The remaining villagers gather in the broken-down Creation Hall and you, the Creator, bring life to the old mannequin sat in the corner, providing them with a hero to combat the darkness and its source – Wilfre. Wilfre used to be a member of the village until he tried to make his own creations instead of just waiting on the Creator. When those creations turned into shadow monsters, he fled the village and tore the Book of Life into shreds, scattering its pages to the wind and condemning the village to eternal darkness. He is the antagonist in both games in the series, though his character gets a lot more development in the sequel.

The games are split in half, the first half being the various story elements, character interactions and drawing sequences required of you to push the plot forward. The other half is a platforming game where you fight off basic enemies, collect the various collectibles and retrieve whatever item/page from the Book of Life you were sent in there to retrieve. At the end of each “world” is a boss that forces you to combine all the skills you’ve learned in that world in order to defeat it. Once you finish one world, you move onto the next. Pretty standard stuff. However, it is the personality of the villagers you save and the world you help create, that you grow so attached to.

Nearly everything in the game, from the hero to the town’s buildings, to the very platforms you use to explore the levels, is hand-drawn by you. Sure, there’s the occasional template out there for you if you aren’t in the mood to draw but the game actively encourages you to put your own twist on the world. Either that or they ran out of budget to pay the artists. I speak from experience; you don’t need the drawings to be “high quality” in order to enjoy the game. Though, I do burst out laughing every time I see my original platform design – I accidentally hit the wrong button so all that got submitted was a red dot! It made me smile so I decided to keep it and carry on with the game, much to my chagrin later when the platforming sections became more complex. After all, it’s rather difficult to jump to a platform you can’t see…

This is my child Heather if you hurt her I WILL FIND YOU

I think part of why the Drawn to Life series has such a profound influence on my love of drawing, is the fact that it accepts literally anything you give it. Whether the hero you provide the game with is just a blob or something more… explicit (looking at you Game Grumps), they go along with it and are just as willing to enlist your assistance to save their world. No matter how ridiculous or sloppy you think it looks, to the characters in the world, it is the most beautiful creation they have ever seen. They are nothing but grateful, which is a really refreshing perspective, especially for young artists that are just starting out.

As much as I prefer the charm and mechanics of the first game, the sequel’s story is what speaks to me the most about this series. Throughout the game, there are constant hints towards a greater meaning to all this, with a mysterious voice asking you about “that night”. They get you to draw what you think you remember about it, occasionally coming back to it in between your various doodling adventures. Wilfre, the bad guy from the original game, claims to be acting for the greater good, saying that if his plan doesn’t succeed then the whole world will be destroyed. He kidnaps Heather – a young Raposa with darkness covering half her face, that you rescued in the first game. So, the Raposa set out to rescue her and defeat Wilfre once again.

Considering his behavior in the first game, no-one believes Wilfre’s “saving the world” claim but soon Mari, the now-mayor of the community, disappears. You see her rip the Book of Life to shreds and Wilfre, disguised as your friend “Sock” (totally not suspicious name there Wilfre), throws the pendant given to you by Heather into the ocean which was your only way of tracking her down. Eventually, you make your way to Wilfre’s lair where Mari confronts you all and explains why she has been working with him to drain the colour from the world. She talks about what she’s seen and how if they don’t act, they’ll all be wiped out. When Mike, a member of your community who looks creepily human in comparison to everyone else, speaks up, Mari screams at him about how he won’t ever understand. You then challenge Wilfre and once you defeat him, you must extinguish the “Eternal Flame” and allow the world you’ve spent so long saving, to fade into darkness. It’s a drastic change from the goofy adventures around the world on a giant sea turtle.

I’m not ashamed to admit that this ending sequence made me very emotional.

In a series of images, you watch a human family visit the carnival and drive home in the dark. The two children in the back of the car are a young girl and her smaller brother, whose parents are killed when the car crashes into a ditch. The young girl’s face is badly injured, resulting in half her face being heavily bandaged. Meanwhile, the little boy is put in a coma. These two children are Heather and Mike. The entire world of the Raposa is an invention of Mike’s mind, keeping him trapped in the coma. The darkness from the first game potentially hints at his struggle to survive his injuries, whilst the colour draining from the world in the second game shows that the more he wakes up, the more the vivid the world he created will become – hence Wilfre draining the colour to prevent it.

This ending was considered too dark for many people and was replaced with Mike falling out of a tree in other releases of the game, however, I think any other ending wouldn’t have such a poignant impact on the player. Throughout the game, you hear someone talking but they don’t seem to make any sense. However, as the Eternal Flame goes out and the world fades, those words become the phrase:

“God… Just bring back my little brother to me.”

I honestly didn’t expect such a deep and profound storyline from such a goofy little game series but I’m so glad I gave these games a chance. We’ve all lost someone, whether it be to illness, time or distance. Speaking from experience, the feeling of sheer hopelessness that comes from watching a loved one in pain is horrific. I can only imagine the pain Heather must have been in, each minute that her baby brother lay in that hospital bed. As much as the Drawn to Life series are kids’ games, they convey much deeper messages and encourage creative expression more than a lot of more “mature” game series.

Now, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hope everyone has a good week and remember to like, comment and follow the site to keep up to date with all my posts. If you want to chat with me about more general things, hit up my twitter – @OurMindGames !

Thanks,

CaitlinRC