Since the birth of the FNAF series, more than 1,600 fan-made versions have appeared in the game market. What magic allows this series to spawn so many fan games with excellent reputations?

If there is any independent game with the most fan-made versions, then Five Night At Freddy’s (FNAF) can compete. As of 29 May 2024, 1,623 fan games with the ‘FNAF’ tag are available for download and play on the game website itch.io.

The FNAF series’ wonderful and mysterious setting and innovative personalized tower defence mechanics made it an instant hit in the global game market after the release of the first series. At first, people were curious about the storyline that was not fully explained in the game. “What story is it telling?” was the question from fans that sparked the initial motivation for the development of fan games.

Yet as the series began to expand, the motivation behind fan game development underwent a fascinating transformation. It shifted from a mere ‘story guessing and supplementing’ mechanism to a myriad of creative approaches. These included more challenging defences, complex puppet attack methods, and puppet designs brimming with creativity from player-made concept styles.

In fact, the diverse focus that fan development allowed for has led to a vibrant new direction for the series. A standout in this landscape is the dedicated fan production label ‘Fazbear Fanverse’, which emerged not only as a distinctive project, but also as an intriguing phenomenon in the game industry.

Here’s a summary of several reasons why the FNAF-inspired fan creations has remained so popular for such a long time.

Intriguing Lore

In the world of FNAF, the conspiracy of “Purple Guy” William Afton set everything off. The most prominent feature of the main series is that it “does not directly express what the story is,” which makes players only infer the truth through the in-game Easter eggs, which help players piece together the incomplete information around the corners of the game.

And because the official FNAF team has never released a complete story background, dozens of possible theories have been generated based on the players’ discoveries (one of which was even used in the adaptation of the movie of the same name), which has become an essential source of inspiration for fan-made games.

Among the fan games that focus on “story expansion,” The Joy Of Creation (TJOC) is the most famous. It has become a classic example of a brilliant fan-made game, following the plot and horror atmosphere set by Scott Cawton – the original author of FNAF – which breaks the fourth wall.

Innovative Horror Elements

Although urban legends about dolls existed at the end of the last century, such as “Mickey Mouse the Murderer” and “Hello Kitty Corpse Case,” the FNAF series is indeed had a significant influence on the horror genre of life-size dolls.

The various animal dolls in the game with different styles and attack methods have been recognized and welcomed by players of the series, quickly becoming iconic to fans. The main dolls Freddy, Bonnie, and Springtrap have appeared repeatedly in fan creations. The extended shapes, personalities, and habits behind their “cute yet hideous” contradictory images have become another major source of inspiration.

In addition to the dolls featured in the main series, there are cases in the extended doll games that have been very successful as a result of the originals’ influence, such as Bendy and the Ink Machine.

Extreme Skills of Gameplay

In the series, each night’s defence is more complex than the previous night. However, some players were left dissatisfied with the vanilla game’s highest difficulty, which became another major factor for fans to create independent games.

The fan community has demonstrated remarkable creativity, not only reimagining the defence gameplay, but also enhancing the doll’s CPU capabilities through redesign. This has particularly appealed to the technically inclined players.

An example of the works born out of the community’s desire for more challenging content is the Rewritten series, which is a remake based on the original version A Golden Past – which sees enemy behaviour more difficult to predict, and a more-limited protection system against enemies, resulting in players being easier to kill.

Conclusion

For the above reasons, the series of games inspired by FNAF has become a milestone in indie gaming, giving rise to fan-made creations in the wider industry. The popularity of the games is still challenging to surpass for many indie studios, producing a unique diffusion effect in independent game production – with studios becoming driven and influenced by another game entirely becoming a new niche in the game industry.