Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

The Strange RPG Keeps Getting Stranger: Five Nights at Freddy’s World Released, Removed from Steam

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 26, 2016

FNAF_WorldFive Nights at Freddy’s is a very popular jump-scare horror game series by indie developer Scott Cawthon. I’ve played the first one. I was amused. My kids, however… my kids loved it. They and their friends didn’t want to play it, mind you. Maybe because it was too scary? No, they wanted to watch other people play it. Especially if said people got scared. Watching other people get scared is more fun than getting scared, I guess.

The decision to turn move the horror IP to a lighter, cute jRPG style game was a little inexplicable. Five Nights at Freddy’s World was announced many months ago, and many people thought it was a joke or something. I mean, REALLY?

So THEN, it appears somewhat ahead of schedule on Steam. I thought, “Wow, that was fast!” And it was. It was actually ahead of his scheduled release. I intended to pick it up soon and check it out, just to say I’d played it and to gather a little bit of first-hand experience with what was certainly going to prove an… unusual indie RPG. I understand it actually is a little bit of a joke… a parody of the horror series, played for humor, but a real RPG nonetheless. My interest is natural.

I may have to wait a little longer. Cawthon has pulled the game from Steam, plans on refunding everyone who bought the game, and has basically taken it back into the workshop after complaints that critical RPG features were missing. Have I mentioned that making an RPG is challenging and time consuming before? Well, it is. Key information was missing, the rules and systems were apparently pretty opaque, and the writing was said to be inconsistent. In spite of all this, it garnered pretty good reviews.

Cawthon plans on fixing many of the gameplay issues and then re-releasing it for free in a few weeks. However long it takes to fix the issues.

His full statement is as follows:

Hi everyone, I wanted to make a post about the fate of FNaF World. Even though the game had a “Very Positive” rating with 87%, I was not satisfied with the reviews and ratings it was getting.

For that reason, I’ve decided to remove the game from Steam. I’ve also asked Valve to make it so that the game can be refunded regardless of the amount of the time it has been owned, meaning that anyone can get a refund at any time. It may take them a while to set that up, but it will be in place soon.

I’m still going to work on FNaF World and polish it up. I’m busy creating a fully 3D overworld for the game. When I’m ready to update the game, I will replace the demo currently on GameJolt with the full game. From this point forward, the game will always be free.

I appreciate your support, and I encourage you all to refund your Steam game (even if you enjoyed the game), and download the new version when it becomes available on GameJolt. 🙂

It’s a strange story, keeps getting stranger.

Still, I wish him luck. And I look forward to checking out the game, eventually.

And yeah… a reminder: making RPGs is challenging and time-consuming.


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Horror Games - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



  • HawlSera said,

    Eh the game isn’t THAT random, if you follow the lore. The animatronics continuously get less and less evil in every appearance. In FNAF 1 they were straight up villains, in FNAF 2 they’re more like Anti-Heroes, in FNAF 3 they’re innocent bystanders, in FNAF 4 they’re literally just kids who accidentally do a bad thing, in the novelization (Silver Eyes), they’re good guys who’ve merely got some bad intel.

    So having a fifth game where they’re straight up protagonists makes perfect sense.

    Additionally the game is avaliable on Steam FOR FREE if you post this into the url section of your browser. steam://install/427920 It’s something Scott had set up so people could play the game for free, but those of us who bought the game could still get a refund.

    I myself will NOT be refunding as I wish to support the developer. (I’m a huge fangirl)

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    I haven’t followed the lore that closely, so I didn’t realize that. That’s good info! Thank you.

    And I applaud your decision to support the dev! The world needs more people like that! 🙂

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