Poll: Five Nights at Freddy's - Do you actually find it scary?

[Trippy Turtle]

Yes in the sense that I flinch out of my skin every time I lose.
Doesn't really put me on edge at all or make me scared before or after the jump though.

 

[VondeVon]

Scary isn't the right word. I find it tension-inducing from the 'countdown' and 'potential jump scare' situation but I don't find it scary to think of and after the first couple of deaths it quickly slides into aggravation - I'm focused on beating the game, not trying to preserve myself. It becomes all about technique and finding 'what works'.

If I ever found myself alone in a kid-themed restaurant with animatronics however... then I might be scared.

 

[WhiteNachos]

I've never played it but I got scared the first time I saw a let's play of it, so yes.

 

[SweetShark]

I find the whole Lore of the game scary, not the game itself. However to be fair, there are some good moments in FNF2 which I don't want to spoil.

 

[Szierra]

No, the game can be very tense the first nights (3rd night is a pinch) but at that point it becomes more of a frustration, the only ones that can jumpscare you are Freddy and Foxy, the others will only attack when you lower the camera monitor.

However, I really love the background story of the game, it is very similar to P.T where there's nothing really said, just hinted at.
I spent a lot of time on the Wiki and read a lot of theories - or just information about the different character - on what happens, who the guy is etc.
There's a lot of mystique and vague things in the game (poster changing, animatronics have hand prints etc) which can be puzzled together and that is the kind of story telling I love the best (same with P.T if you've watched the solution and also pay attention to what the guy on the radio says at the beginning.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=th_LYe97ZVc&list=PL35FE5C4B157509C9#t=147 Watch the video and you'll understand what I mean

Now, if you were a cynical person, you could just say that the developer put in some vague shit and then decided to roll with whatever theories the fans came up with, however I like to think that it's thought out and further builds upon in FNaF 2 with all the minigames (which is made in a creepy Snes kind of way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1kw1RmzrPc )

 

[WhiteNachos]

One of my biggest problems with the sequel is the pointlessness of checking cameras. The only camera that gets looked at is the one where you need to wind up the music box.

Actually in the first game the only camera you need is that one that looks at Pirate Cove to check for Foxy. Other than that, all you need to do is look left, flick the light, look right, flick the light, check on Pirate Cove camera, and repeat.

Have you actually won the game doing that? Or at least beat night 5? I'm thinking there's no way the developer didn't think of that and work around it.

Like if you close the door and you think the monsters have gone away don't you need the cameras and the light to find out if they're still not right besides the door?

 

[Divine Retribution]

I found it a lot scarier than 'real' horror games like Silent Hill 2

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

While I don't necessarily find this game scary, I do find this games narrative rather interesting and it's delivery fantastic. I await for the third to see how this series evolves.

 

[MHR]

Don't think of it like some flimsy animatronic. Think of it like the stone angels from Doctor Who and it's creepy. They don't move when you look at them with the camera or shine a light, but they clearly make progress when you aren't looking. but if you listen, you can hear them move. You only SEE them move when they already have you.

 

[Varanfan9]

Five Nights at Freddy's is a scary game for the first few levels, but it loses that fast.
See, Five Nights understands one key thing about horror: Jump Scares are not scary, but the threat of jump scares is terrifying. This is why horror movies usually have build up to a false scare followed up by an actual jump scare. I will give it that Five Nights is waaaay scarier than most indie "horror" games because it understands this concept, but it only has this one concept to fall back on. For a horror game to be effective, it needs to scare the player on multiple levels, not just one.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Nah...jump scares aren't scary; they're startling but they're not genuinely scary. Furthermore, after a while the jump-scares go from startling to annoying. I've never actually played FNaF or its sequel but from the let's play videos and game theory videos, I'm really interested in the lore. Again, I don't find it particularly scary but I do think it's a really interesting way to tell a story.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yes, actually. Paranoia gets me every time.

(Bonnie x Robbie OTP)

brb fan arting

 

[TakeyB0y2]

One of my biggest problems with the sequel is the pointlessness of checking cameras. The only camera that gets looked at is the one where you need to wind up the music box.

Actually in the first game the only camera you need is that one that looks at Pirate Cove to check for Foxy. Other than that, all you need to do is look left, flick the light, look right, flick the light, check on Pirate Cove camera, and repeat.

Have you actually won the game doing that? Or at least beat night 5? I'm thinking there's no way the developer didn't think of that and work around it.

Like if you close the door and you think the monsters have gone away don't you need the cameras and the light to find out if they're still not right besides the door?

Yes indeedy I have. In fact, I couldn't beat the game at all until I adopted that strategy. And when the animatronics appear outside a door and you close it, when you hit the light button you can see their shadows and that's how you can tell if they're gone or not so you can re-open the door, or in Chica's case, once she's gone from the window.

 

[porous_shield]

This game has jump scares yes, but they are different than many other games jump scares. Random crappy games will turn out the lights and throw something in your face that's loud and sudden and rely on that for scare factor.There isn't much craft involved. It's much like those pictures that play a loud noise after a few seconds to startle people. FNAF doesn't do that. Even before you know the mechanics, you can see them out there and moving around and you know they'll eventually come looking for you. When you do learn the mechanics, failure and slow reflexes are what cause the jump scares; if you're not fast enough there's going to be something screaming in your face. That is fundamentally different from how other games use jump scares, and to say the games relies on them like all those other crap jump scare games, I feel is a disservice to a game that tried something different than all those crap games looking for a quick buck.

I find the game creepy as hell but it undermines itself as you progress through the nights. The first couple nights are tense and scary since you don't know what's happening. You have the time to scare yourself checking the cameras and watching them move and pop up unexpectedly, but unfortunately, as the nights progress the game becomes much harder and game loses something because you can't check the all cameras and you have to look around as fast as possible. The later nights make it almost impossible to check any cameras except the one at pirate cove to keep Foxy at bay, and in FNAF2, only winding the music box because the animatronics move too fast.

Even though Phone Guy is adding backstory each night and should be making the game creepier, you don't have time to appreciate it because of the increasing difficulty. Night 3 I failed multiple times before I managed to beat it while night 4 took dozens of tries and night 5 even more than that. There's no way any game can retain atmosphere when you're retrying it that many times.

 

[Evonisia]

Don't think of it like some flimsy animatronic. Think of it like the stone angels from Doctor Who and it's creepy. They don't move when you look at them with the camera or shine a light, but they clearly make progress when you aren't looking. but if you listen, you can hear them move. You only SEE them move when they already have you.

Doesn't one of them run on camera? I know the others don't so that fits for them, though.

 

[MHR]

Don't think of it like some flimsy animatronic. Think of it like the stone angels from Doctor Who and it's creepy. They don't move when you look at them with the camera or shine a light, but they clearly make progress when you aren't looking. but if you listen, you can hear them move. You only SEE them move when they already have you.

Doesn't one of them run on camera? I know the others don't so that fits for them, though.

Yeah, foxy sprints down the hallway at Hussain Bolt speed. It's scarier, because it's something you absolutely do not expect. It's like if the stone angels suddenly ignored the rules and just tried to kill you as fast as possible, you wouldn't know what to do.