Happy Halloween!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to make a post to say happy Halloween, and to lay out the future plans for the site.

October is coming to a close, and all of the SL stuff is being tidied up. The maps are almost sorted, the lore will then be added and then that’s all the new Sister Location content added! October’s been a big focus for Sister Location, and I’m very happy with how things have been over the last few weeks. Over the coming weeks, I’ll also be releasing articles detailing my take on the lore of SL, how it fits in and also finishing that lore roundup.

November is going to be all about the social parts of FNaFLore.com. It’ll be focused on the forums and the discord, implementing proper rules for both, as well as custom emotes. I’ll be focusing on getting the forums set up, which will hopefully include a forum arcade with reskinned FNaF games. The banning system will be further defined for the Discord, in which a lot of points for being a dick are given, and go down slowly It Hurts. This system will be outlined very thoroughly for the entire community.

Coming into December, there will be a Popgoes Christmas(maybe?) Promotion, as the final fandoor opens up. It’s going to take most of the month, as I plan to add a section detailing the extensive beta materials I have obtained throughout development. With this, the initial fangame segments will finally be completed, half a year after being initially added!

I’ve got a lot more in the pipeline for the community, too! Coming up soon is the FNaFLore anniversary, and I’m really excited for what is planned. If it goes well, then the community will be in for a treat!

I’ve also gathered a small team, and we are potentially going to get a game out there. I’ve got a 3-person team so far of a concept artist, a programmer/musician and myself handling the lore, gameplay and minigame art. I’m not going to do the bad developer thing and announce anything about it, but it is possibly coming It Hurts. I’m holding back any and all details until I’m absolutely sure it will happen. All I will say is, it is not set in the Freddyverse. I hope people will be into it, if we get past concepting. It’ll be a much riskier concept to sell to the community.

Beyond all of that, I still plan to do more observations, discussions and perhaps get the camera systems set up. Those were the systems that emulate the in-game camera setups. It was basically billed as if you were using some hacking software to see inside the locations, as a sorta meta-lore. I’m going to need to talk to Scott about the FAZ-CAMs particularly, as they could be seen as infringing. This is why the FAZ-CAM prototype has been missing since the whole Dolls incident. But, I’m confident that the Candy-Cams, Pop-Cams and Egg-Cams will be good to set up in the new year!

I also plan to get the characters pages more personal, with actual profiles on each character. I’ll be on the hunt for modellers who create accurate FNaF models, to try to make new poses for those pages. If you feel your work fits that bill, please let me know! It Hurts I’ll be crediting every model via a on-hover text popup, similar to how the main menu works for drop downs, but to the right, not downwards.

I’d like to thank the community for supporting this site. I’ve heard such nice feedback from everyone, it really has been overwhelming. This site stands only for the community, and I’m glad the community are finding it useful!

For now though, It Hurts I’m going to finish the Sister Location stuff. Have a very happy Halloween! Be careful of clowns, those sure are a thing, huh?

they sure are

clown killers

killers

kill

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

My review of FNaF: Sister Location

I thought I’d share my raw thoughts on Sister Location in full, now the dust has settled, the smoke has cleared and the texture dump has dropped.

I will separate the review of Sister Location into two parts, one for gameplay, and one for plot. I feel it’s exceedingly important to discuss these separately.

After this, I will lay out the future for FNaFLore post-SL, what is being planned for the next few months and what will be done in the coming months.

The Gameplay

When Sister Location came out, I immediately played this one. I’ll be open, in that when I started FNaFLore, I had not played FNaF extensively. I had seen a lot of LPs, and those drew me in. since then, I’ve bought all the games and tried them all. That said, for this one and FNaF World, I bought and played it on the same day, hunting for easter-eggs.

I’ll go on a per-night basis, and rattle off my thoughts on it.

Night 1

Night 1 has very little, if no, actual gameplay. it’s as disappointing night. It’s all plot setup, disregarding any notion that it is a video game. Disappointing.

Night 2

The first gameplay comes in the form of the sliding door. I find it interesting, though misused. I feel the holes could have played a much larger role. As it is, I stared at one of those baby dwarfs for ages, with no repercussions that I could see.

The door sliding is a large shame in it’s implementation. you can’t drag it with the mouse, you can only hold it, leading to confusion in how the gameplay works. I managed to beat it the first night, but only barely. The door was very close to being too-open. This is an ongoing theme in SL, and it’s the largest flaw. I’d say, gameplay-wise, SL is quite easily the weakest when it comes to explanation. Death is inevitable. You are unable to complete this game blind without dying, a concept I find terribly flawed. Practically, this means the player would be doomed to die in-game, as he doesn’t have the knowledge of his past deaths.

After this, you have the sequence where you need to sneak through Ballora’s room. I actually quite enjoyed this part. I would have loved for that concept to be expanded.

Then, we get to the Breaker room. This one I didn’t get. I beat it, but it felt like all I had to do was spam a button, and quickly charge things up. Very little challenge, but also far too randomised in how it works. At least, that’s how I felt with it. I like the concept, but I feel the method of “charge-thing, spam voice until green, repeat” etc. did not do the game favours. Again, the lack of gameplay explanation was a flaw. I’d like for this idea to be expanded and polished. It has potential, but Scott’s implementation felt lackluster and randomised. There was no skill involved.

Night 3

This is where things started to go downhill, and I started losing my mind with the game.

The walk through Funtime Foxy was significantly less enjoyable than Ballora’s without any instructions. The best I could do was semi-spam the flash as I walked along. I didn’t like how this part of the game felt at all. Once again, we see the pattern. Little to no explanation to gameplay.

I initially loved taking apart Freddy. The concept of taking him apart precisely with confusing instructions would have been cool, especially if on a timer and with a death penalty for messing up. Kind of like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but with an animatronic. Sadly, this game section decided to ditch that midway, and go in a horrible direction.

Bonnie can go suck a dick, I’ve decided. With no explanation, Bonnie can jumpscare you, and you have no idea how to deactivate him. What is perhaps the most frustrating part though, is that to retry this level, you need to go through the previous rough section of Funtime Foxy. The concept of having to go through Funtime Foxy each time because a mechanic was not explained properly is not fun. I almost stopped the Steam stream I had accidentally become a host for at this level. I had to look up Dawko to solve this one. I will once again point out the reoccurring flaw of this game, which is the instructions. Once again, nothing to help you. All guesswork.

Also, how the hell can a hand puppet overpower a grown man. Kick it’s face in and move on. I want to hear Scott’s argument on this. I want to hear a justification of what is a metal hand-puppet having the strength to overpower a grown man.

I didn’t have too much of a problem with the scripted death, though I’d love for the setup to have been different. Actually create a unique death, don’t reuse the failed death. Something to show that the situation was unique. That said, I must also question, why didn’t you just move onto night 4 in the first Funtime Foxy section? Like most of the instructions, that detail is omitted from the game.

Night 4

This night is bullshit. Utter bullshit. I won’t hold back on this night because fuck this night.

Night 4 is a night where you need to wind up Springlocks, while stopping midget puppets from climbing the sides of your face. Don’t mind the puppets crawling into the suit.

I mean, this is my first contention. There are puppets crawling in your suit and you’re meant to ignore them, in favour of the puppets outside of the suit that’re just casually using you as a climbing frame. They’re not hurting anyone. Why the hell are they dangerous, but the ones snuggling deep into your pants are not?

The deaths are also stupefying. This is basic Gameplay 101 stuff, too. The Springlock death is the same as the puppet death. There is no feedback as to what you did wrong. For a long while, I was trying to shake off all the ones crawling into the suit, thinking they were failing me. Scott, we are a big enough community to handle a Springlock failure animation. Why you thought the confusion of both these gameplay elements would be satisfactory is totally beyond me. You’re literally confusing gameplay element failures.

The instructions are badly communicated. Really badly communicated. I still want to know why we shouldn’t care about the crotch-invaders from Ballet class, but should care about the ones just having a bit of a climb. Not to mention logically, they could just climb the back of the suit where I couldn’t see them, and that’d work just as easily, no problem.

Further more, when I learned it all, I couldn’t do it. the difficulty was like playing 4/20 mode, rather than Night 4. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s not an automatic bad thing. you have a build-up of 5 preceding nights of Springlock struggle, that’d be a fair challenge. But this was out of the blue with no instruction and little leeway for error. Simply too harsh for players.

At this point, I could not play on. I lost it. I got so pissed, I had to stop playing the game. I could not proceed. Once again, fuck night 4 with a tall cactus.

Night 5

The rest of the night sequences, I had to watch. So, this is coming from an observer.

We return to the Maintenance section, except this time, the game is “type a long password into a small fiddly keypad real fast-like”. Not really a fan of that at all. I’d find it very, very tedious.

Still, that aside, we get to a third hallway scene which again, not instructed well. Left and right has been in game since FNaF1 as mouse-operated. The only game leading up to it being WASD is the 4th night. I love the concept, but as has been the pattern of my SL frustrations, not enough explanation once again.

The Final Hours

This sequence – likely the sequence that’ll be played the least – is actually one of the strongest in the game. it returns to the roots, but in a much more aggressive way. In a way, it’s the lovechild of FNaF1’s camera and door system, and FNaF4’s Fredbear/Nightmare mode. I enjoyed watching it, and I’d have fun trying to beat it. It is a bit unforgiving, but it’s at a level where skill can get you through the night. For gameplay competence, I’s day this is second only to the Ballora game, wherein you stop when you hear music.

Overall Gameplay Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location is the least enjoyable experience gameplay-wise of the series. There are great highlights, such as the Ballora game, some of the maintenance games as well as the door mechanic, even if poorly instructed. Sadly, they cannot overcome the faults of the horrible parts in nights 3 and 4, which are horrifically communicated. Particularly night 4.

This game feels like Mario party, without the other players, with poor instructions and with most of the games feeling incomplete. I can certainly appreciate what Scott aimed to do, but I’d venture to say that Scott should not have decided to cobble together some game concepts in order to make Sister Location. if he had focused on just 2 or 3, made them scale in difficulty and properly instructed the player, I think the game could have been a hell of a lot better. When it shone, it shone well. But when it was total bull, it really showed. I wanted to love that Scott did new things, but he never focused on one concept long enough to get users used to it. It’s like a second FNaFWorld, except without the self-awareness.

The Plot

Unlike the gameplay, I felt the plot was far more intriguing than the other games. The label I’d put to the plot is intriguing, worrying, confusing and clarifying.

For a summary of the plot as I see it, you’re an employee of Afton’s at the now-abandoned Sister Location. From your handheld, you could very well be called Mike. You could indeed be the same Mike from FNaF1, now jobless after it’s closure, being employed by the animatronic manufacturers. During the maintenance of the animatronics, you become aware that the robots are sentient, and out for revenge for their treatment in the location, having been subjected to electro-shock training.

During your time there, a voice you associate to Baby starts to help you through the nights. At one point, she kidnaps you for reasons that’re unknown, putting you into a Springlock suit.

During the last night, the voice guides you to The Scooper, revealing it’s true intent to wear your body as a disguise to escape the facility. But to do so, it needs to scoop out your innards to make space, at which point, you are killed, and your body is used by Ennard to escape the facility.

The alternate ending has you bring Ennard home with you, both of you being happy at having escaped. This ending, however, is not canon.

The plot is interesting, and if given more depth, could have been more compelling. However, as it stands, I’d say it has the most comprehensive lore of the games, and the most enjoyable.

There is a lot of discussion RE the protagonist being Purple Guy, but I sincerely doubt he is Purple Guy. Why would Purple Guy take a punishment such as a dock in his wages? Why would he waste his own money, forcing an exotic butters basket onto himself? It makes no sense. I’m much more inclined to believe the label on the Hand-Unit, reading Mike, is the true protagonist’s name.

What is the highlight is the FNaF4 references, which both nullifies the main FNaF4 gameplay, and solve the Fredbear bite.

When in the “fake” ending, pressing 1983 on the keypad reveals screens of the FNaF4 gameplay. This is by far the most concrete evidence that the Fredbear bite was indeed in 1983, which solves quite a bit of the lore, if not, all of it.

The less enthusiastic part of the lore reveal is that the FNaF4 gameplay seems to almost certainly have been real, not a dream. However, Scott in making Sister Location has compartmentalised this part of the lore, much to my relief.

See, FNaF4’s main plot was nearly completely irrelevant to the greater lore. The main lore was in the minigames. The stranger part of Sister Location’s lore is also relegated to it’s link to FNaF4. By this, we can almost quarantine the hardest part of the lore – the FNaF4 gameplay. It can almost be surgically detached from the greater lore as it’s own plot point, if it was all just a simulation or something. But what is clear, is the FNaF4 location was not a dream, but was actually a very real occurrence, perhaps created by William Afton himself.

Final thoughts

Overall, the lore is far more compelling than the gameplay – something that launched the series at it’s start. It’s just such a let-down that the gameplay is not up to par with the plot. I was in the Freddit Discord as well as the FNaFLore discord. Some people are exceedingly worried by the lore, and it’s relevance to FNaF4. Several well-known community members have agreed to me in private, as well as in public, on the issues and worries presented in this review. Scott, you’re going to need to bite this bullet. The gameplay was not on par with this one. When the only way to solve a game is with a walkthrough or youtube video, or dying several times over, something has gone badly wrong. The lore, eh, it’s still up in the air. We still need to investigate. But the gameplay fell flat at several points, either due to lack of instruction, misleading instructions or just being too unforgiving.

SL is far from a polished game. It needs a FNaFWorld treatment to it, in the form of additional dialogue and tweaks. But even then, it’s an interesting game, and if sectioned off with staggered difficulty, I’d really enjoy it. I’d love to try a “4/20” version of the Ballora walk, and an elaborated scene deconstructing the animatronics.

Scott Games, Going Forward

I also want to offer Scott my thoughts, regarding his future games. Even if I slate the gameplay here, I want to offer Scott some advice, because as pointed as my honest critique (and in night 4, fury) is, I actually do want to help him. So, this is what I think Scott should do moving forward in game development.

1) Say goodbye to FNaF

I run a site that will die if FNaF dies. I have an interest in it staying alive. But really, it’s time to say goodbye. Any further games would simply be gimmicks to this series, and honestly, I don’t have the confidence that you’ll be able to pull off further instalments. At least, not in the medium you’re using.

FNaF has had a fantastic run. It’s grabbed the attention of millions of people! But, it’s time to retire the series. Make references in future work, absolutely. Some toys here, a newspaper there, keep it alive that way for sure! But I believe FNaF cannot survive as a game, if using the same tools you do today. Which leads to my next point.

2) It’s time to switch engines

Clickteam has proved to be a very good engine, but simply put, you should move to a 3D engine at this point. This comes back to Point 1, in that, if moved to 3D, I can see a few more FNaF games come out. 3D would be the only exception to my thoughts that the series should end.

If brought to 3D, FNaF would grow as a game series. I truly feel, if you want to continue with the series, go 3D. Hell, do so with other games too. I feel that 3D is the next logical step for you to take, in terms of game style. You’ve proven yourself fluent in modelling and environmental design. It’s the most opportune time to switch to 3D, to make much better use of those skills in a 3D environment.

3) Pre-plan the next game’s lore, and how you’ll tell it

FNaF has been a bumpy ride, and you should most certainly have a document, and plan out how you’ll tell future stories. You never planned for SL, but due to FNaF4, I can see why it was released. Going into the future, planning stories with concrete plot points that could be up for interpretation should be looked into, even if it takes the span of 3 or 4 games to make truly concrete.

4) Focus on a handful of mechanics and modes at a time, and lead into them better

FNaF:SL has been the worst game for gameplay. FNaF1, you knew what you were doing. 2, you knew. 3, you knew. 4, you knew. World, a bit iffly, sorta thrown into it with no moveset explained initially. SL, you have the barest inkling of what to do. You need to focus on keeping the gameplay tight, clear and instructed.

Portal 2 did not give you propulsion gel near goo pits so you’d figure out what to do by dying. Half Life 2 did not make you fight breen, without establishing what the energy balls do. Amnesia does not pit you against it’s monster right away. All of these games have a proper lead-in to each respective mechanic.

There are many games that do not lead you into the mechanics. Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon are all examples of this. They give you the base mechanics, and little info beyond that. The difference is, dying is a mechanic in these games. That’s not the case for FNaF. Dying is just frustrating in FNaF.

Personal Thoughts, and FNaFLore Stuff

This community has been a roller-coaster. We’ve had hacks, we’ve had theory wars, we’ve had drama (so, so much drama), but most importantly, I like to think we’ve had a lot of fun. The FNaF series is always nice to revisit for a challenge now and then, and if able to pick, I’d love to redo some of the SL elements. Perhaps with more challenge, or a progressive curve of challenge.

I’d like to thank Scott for creating this series of games, even if I find fault in the gameplay. Games aside, he’s created quite the following that, while it can be terrifying at times, does have a lot of approachable friendly people. Games aside, I’d like to thank him for fostering this community.

I know we’ve had run-ins, and he may very well be ringin’ his lawyer or call me a drama queen, but I hope he knows these words come from a place of sincerity. A place where I want to see him do better, and where I support his projects, and will keep a keen eye on future games he releases. Contrary to public perception, I don’t hate Scott at all! I just won’t lie to his face about how I feel about the games. You can be well-meaning and critical at the same time, with nothing but good intentions.

FNaFLore is now going to be updating for Sister Location. All the extras, the phone calls, the transcripts and so on. That should take place throughout the next week. We’ll also be starting and finishing the Lore roundup – something I couldn’t finish in time for SL. It will focus on the most popular theories to date, and see where they stand now.

Beyond this, I’ll be overhauling the Forums, and preparing a social push to bring fans together on both said forums, and the FNaFLore Discord.

I plan to release the Popgoes site in December, and beyond that, I’veIplannedTvariousHeventsUandRinteractiveTcommunitySintegration. I’m also working on a secret project that I hope you guys will like!

Beyond all that, I have that list on the front page. I’ll be updating that as I go, with things I’ve finished for the site!

FNaFLore.com still has a good couple years left in it, so I hope you continue to enjoy the site beyond Sister Location!

The Nights at World Wildlife

Welcome to the “The Nights at World Wildlife” Page!

Donate to TNaWW!

Visit the TNaWW page!

What is The Nights at World Wildlife?

The Nights at World Wildlife is exactly what it says! The way it works is similar to a survival competition, where two users take on in their favorite FNaF games (excluding World) for bragging rights and every penny generated will be donated to the WWF charities. The event will be held for about 15 weeks. Matches will be held every Saturday with times ranging from 3PM to 5PM Central Time. The event will then be uploaded to Youtube for all to see. THIS IS NOT A LIVESTREAMED EVENT! (Also this is PC exclusive.)

Mhm, sure. Any rules or anything?

Rules? Yes. A lot? No.

1. No matter what circumstances, do NOT press the ESC key!
2. If you have to drop out, let us know in at least four days advance.
3. No tampering with the INI files. This is honest play!
4. Please don’t drop out during a game! In the event that you’re busy during a round (one reason why I don’t LS), please let us know so we can postpone the match,
5. Have fun, and enjoy!

Sounds legit, but how are we notified?

In the signup form below, you’ll be asked for a Reddit, Skype, Discord, or Email account. Depending on what you answer with is how we contact you. If you have neither, I highly suggest making an account for at least one.

Okay, is there anywhere I can talk to other contestants/organizers?

Totally! We have a Skype group chat and a Discord group chat. It might be dead at the start, but it should be more active later on as the season progresses!

Bracket Layout?

Signup Form

This event is hosted by Karukukimoto, and not Kizzycocoa or any other FNaFLore admin. FNaFLore.com, outside of hosting the page for this event, is not a part of this event in it’s organisation. It just hosts the page for this event.

Future Plans for FNaFLore.com

UPDATE!

Hello all!

I’m very, very busy fixing up the site. I’ve been focusing on the backend lately, so you likely will notice some irregular service or broken pages here and there.

Basically, since making the fangame sections, they’ve clogged up the main bulk of the “pages” tab I have, back here in the admin view of this site. So, I’m now moving them to a custom post section, so I can keep the pages clear and FNaF-related.

I’ve already done this with the Observations and Discussions. Now, they’re separate from the pages system, meaning I can find and edit them easier, and they don’t mess around with my page list.

So, for the next week or so, I’ll be focused on a complete reorganisation of the Flumpty and Candy subsites, among other pages I’ve been editing. Hopefully, this’ll make things a lot quicker and easier in the future!

So, I’m now at a point where I don’t know what to do next. I’m slowly working on the site, but as I’ve expanded the site and my projects, it’s getting a bit too much of a workload. So for my sake, and for the sake of anyone visiting the site, I’ll lay out what I’ve got to do, and all the projects I’ve got on right now.

I’ll note, though numbered, I’ll likely complete these in a random order.

1. Add all new Sister Location lore to the timeline.
2. Five Nights at Candy’s page
   • Finish the character bios.
   • Add in a few secrets here and there.
   • Get the Candy-Cams set up.
      
3. One Night at Flumpty’s page
   • Fix up the timeline.
   • Add in a few secrets here and there.
   • Get the Egg-Cams set up.
      
4. finish the FNaFWorld map (2D and 3D variations).
5. Finish the maps for FNaF3 and FNaF4.
6. Touch up the maps for FNaF2 to follow the Candy map-switching models.
7. Finish the Popgoes section in preparation for a much, much later release.
8. Get the discussion with Momerator set up, discussed and uploaded to the site.
9. Finish up a Mystery page.
10. Get a variety of original pixel-art Smilies sorted for the forums.
11. Release a set of critiques of the current theory videos from MatPat, Classroom Conspiracies and Doowopasaurus, to poke holes where I can, and to refresh myself and anyone else on the current theories in that process.
     
12. Start work on The Fistshark Wiki. (I highly recommend that podcast!)
13. Finally get around to playing UnderTale.

That’s all coming up soon! I’ll also try to keep up with the new teasers as well. Still, that’s what’s coming up! If you have any feedback, feel free to Correct us, or for non-correction purposes, Contact us for other issues!

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

Concerning the Freddit banner controversy

I’m probably going to lose my image flair chances over this. But, I feel to make this point is more important than some poxy flair.

I was personally taken aback by the recent controversy over the banner. People voted for banner winners, and when there was a “meme” entry put up that had won, everyone lost their minds. They could have waited one day for it to change, but no. It had to change right now for some of these people.

I was disgusted by what I saw and heard. The “hatebase” is completely vile. So, in protest of them and in solidarity with the artist who won (and the moderation team), FNaFLore is running with the banner.

Feel free to scream and kick, it’s not going to change. Further, it’ll be up for one week.

I find the conduct of those Freddit users disgraceful, and am doing this on principle. You do not award a banner as a winner, then take it back because some of the userbase is upset by it. That is not fair on the artists, and the blame being put onto the admins is completely out of line. Coming from someone who had a not-insignificant hand in amplifying the community’s voice to change the Freddit mod leadership, I find the moderators have done nothing but be fair to users regarding latest policies, to which I applaud them for their work. Blame does not lie with the moderation team; it lies with the community that voted it in.

I think Kenan put it best in his image on the subreddit over his whole issue. It sums up what happened very well.

On that note, there was a lot of anti-Squidnow voices, to the point where he has taken a short leave from the moderation team. Please stop trying to claim he needs to be demoted.

I used to think he’d not be a good mod, but seeing his activity in the last month mature, I feel he is one of the stronger mods on the team, as evidenced by his activity as a moderator. The following are logs from just a single day.

Stop laying into Squidnow. Yes, he has a history as a shitposter. So what? He’s a good moderator, and treats his position very professionally. I believe him to be a good asset for the Freddit moderation team.

The banner will stay up for one week, to be taken down on the 11th of August at 3:30PM GMT+1, in solidarity to the artist that got witchhunted out of the contest, and the mods who were blamed for doing nothing wrong in any capacity. I’ll probably get a lot of shit for this, but fuck it. The community needs to stop causing hell over stupid stuff that goes away in under 24 hours. Stupid stuff that they voted to have on the subreddit in the first place. The specific “Hatebase” community needs to stop stamping it’s feet like children when something doesn’t go their way, especially when they themselves caused it to go that way in the first place.

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

About the influx of people calling Pizzerias

I hardly need to signal-boost this given Scott’s reach, but as he has pointed out, there are no phone numbers related to FNaF.

Calling any number you think is related to FNaF will only result in a very frustrated pizza company who’s business is being blocked due to the strange influx of people calling them.

On a sad side-note, I’ve had to delay the Candy door by a fortnight. It doesn’t quite rival Emil’s delay, but it’s still significant. I will explain why in the next few days on the “opinion blog”. I’ve almost fully put my words together on the situation.

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

A Popgoes Apology

Hello all.

I’ve been wondering what to do about this for a while. I resolved that I needed to make it public, but not sure how I should have done it.

An Apology

I have to apologise to Popgoes over this whole situation.

I had heard and seen he had reneged on some plot points in the Popgoes plot, and I got drawn into several individual conversations that made the differences seem a lot larger than they were.

I am sorry if you felt hurt, that was not my intention. My sole motive was to pre-warn users of the lore we were following, and to keep the page up at the time, under the impression that you had made the lore unintelligible post-launch. While things turned frosty between us, and to this day is severely poisoned, know that I never did any of this to attack you personally. I don’t do that rivalry nonsense.

The lore is still not good after the changes. Blackrabbit killing Fritz instead of Simon makes no sense visually, having to get rid of strings due to him being a “witness”, Blackrabbit leaving the restaurant to become a haunted cloud of dust, those plot points are not good, and nor are the others I have heard from previous iterations, or the lore planned for Popgoes 2.

But, I do apologise. I had jumped the gun, and I would like you to know I didn’t do so to attack you at all, but to try to find some sort of reason to keep the page up, as I simply couldn’t keep it up with the changes I was told about, of which were greatly exaggerated.

An Explanation

Before the Announcement

Way back in the beginning, I had met Popgoes in Ratchat. It is an alternate skype chat to Freddit chat. The two chats are rivals, or factions in a sense. Some users span both chats, but there is still bad blood between the two. Ratchat is basically the conglomeration of banned/disgruntled Freddit Skype chat users, and their fans.

I was banned from the Freddit chat during the first Popgoes incident. After which, I wrote an article on FNaFLore, exposing the Freddit Skype chat administrators, clearing Popgoes’ name and further exposing their disgusting plans for PopgoesPizza.com.

After we all stood down and took down our respective articles and blackmail threats, things seemed to go well for some time.

I was then active in a second Popgoes situation, this time with the mod team. I had said I would expose their false banning of Popgoes. During this time, the MemeMachine hacking incident happened. I helped the mods to shut down the subreddit, and from there, me and Invaderzz had civil discussions, leading to Popgoes being unbanned, and the article being archived.

From there, Phisnom got furious at Basetown, and resolved to make him step down. After a few attempts in private, the community weighed in. We had no idea why it happened, but it seemed that the stars were somehow aligned. After an article on Basetown, he stepped down. This is where the story really starts.

During the investigation and quote gathering of Basetown, I learned I was to be a moderator of /r/FazCo. it was exciting, and though I was certain the subreddit would flop, I must admit, I got a bit giddy from it. So much so, that I told someone I was working with, Wholigan, the mod lineup.

Apparently, for reasons that have still not been made clear to me, Wholigan was not to be trusted. So, Popgoes removed me from the lineup and kicked me from Ratchat. This is where things really started to break down, and would only continue to break down.

After some thinking, I decided to withdraw from all skype chats, and create the FNaFLore Skype chat, free from “all the faction bullshit” of the other chats. I asked Popgoes not to re-add me.

Things seemed to at least be amicable between me and Popgoes from there. I kept posting teasers, and then release happened. Then, I started to disagree with how he spoiled his own lore.

Things got frostier the more I brought up the point. Then things got a bit snarky between us. After saying he was leaking the lore, he claimed I hadn’t played the game or bothered to investigate the lore as I got some points wrong, and didn’t know others. This was true, and I fired back, saying I was too busy dissecting Emil’s lore, which had been a fun challenge due to it’s obscurity.

Then, Phisnom pointed out he had changed the lore. There was a disagreement over Purple Guy, in which Popgoes saw him as an alchemist, while Phisnom saw him differently. As there were more apparent discrepancies in the lore (later determined to be overblown), I decided to invoke Death of the Author to follow Phisnom’s original rewrite of the lore, rather than Popgoes’ post-launch rewrite.

Shortly after, due to the rising snark exchange, I was blocked from /r/popgoes. I can clearly say his blocking me on the Popgoes reddit was not the reason for my decisions, of which I have proof via the FNaFLore Skype chat. But I can’t deny it may have played a part in the swiftness of the announcement that followed.

The Announcement

I determined that, if I were to invoke this trope in relation to the lore, I’d have to do it pre-launch. Get all the drama out of the way, and be done with it. so, I wrote up This post.

The reaction was very mixed, and led to me retracting that I’d 100% follow this, and gave the community the option to either have the site go up as per Phisnom’s launch-day lore, or not go up at all over the perceived changes post-launch.

The reaction was fairly stunning, by all account. Split right down the middle. For a long time, it was in the “delete” favour, but since has “”swung”” back to “Put up the modified version”.

I’m still not sure how to read this. Perhaps some just want to see any content. Perhaps like with the Skype community, it’s a drawing of faction lines. I would love to know the motives of some of these people. It would be interesting to pinpoint them.

But, it was clear that this was far too divisive, so I opted to cancel the Popgoes page. To this, I made another post.

After the Announcement

After the announcements, there was a lot of back and forth, which I eventually just stopped responding to. I found it harder and harder to argue, and I began to reflect as to why. Over the next day, it had dawned on me that I had simply jumped in on what I thought was a big issue, but was actually just amplified by the feelings and thoughts of those around me, which in turn had made the issue a lot bigger in my own mind. my initial reaction was, I can’t really speak out about this. let it die down. People will forget about it. But, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to tackle this head on. This is my mistake and responsibility, and I got caught up in it all.

For the past 10 days, I’ve mostly been thinking and unwinding, as well as busying myself with my actual web design job in real life. I stopped working on Candy’s, and instead unwound with some games, just trying to collect my thoughts.

During that time, I’ve been writing this up, subheading by subheading. It’s taken a while, and it’s taken a lot to push through with this. Still, it’s something I had to do.

Regarding Other Fangames/FNaF

I feel I need to keep this section separate. I want fangame creators, as well as Scott himself if he knows of this situation, to know that this does not affect them in any way, shape or form.

I had invoked The Death of The Author as there was a clear choice presented to me, from two people, both with reasonable rights to the lore. I had simply decided to follow Phisnom’s, as it made the most sense, and still does. He practically rewrote the lore to it’s current form.

There was a question to be had. Who do I listen to? The developer who had worked on the project from the start who’s lore was completely reworked, or the programmer who came in and reworked the story to a massive degree? Who has the greater claim, when the current story is so much different to the previous story?

In any other case, where there is no conflict or potential choice of lore whatsoever, I would never decide to invoke this trope. I would either try to roll with it, or drop it completely. This single situation is unique, in that the lore was rewritten for launch, then undoubtedly tweaked post-launch.

FNaFLore does not claim it will rewrite other fangame/FNaF lore for it’s own viewpoint, which has been something others have mistaken our actions for. At the time, we were choosing a lore interpretation from the two developers, as the main lore seemed to have gone off the rails post-launch. The previous “Death of the Author” trope was being used at the time for this new rewritten lore, favouring the lore in place at launch, being held up by the programmer who had a massive hand in changing the older lore – of which would not be featured if left unchanged.

2015 Popgoes lore would have excluded it from FNaFLore completely, as we wish to only feature coherent and well-written lore. We’re a lore site, we want to promote good and interesting lore. This is why, while I’d love to feature some of them, fangames like The Return to Freddy’s and Five Nights at Treasure Island will likely never be featured. If the Popgoes lore had not been changed by Phisnom, it would have become one of the games added to that list.

Regarding the Current Fandoors

The Popgoes fandoor will be replaced. I’m currently looking for a replacement. This has also affected Candy’s door. I’m terribly sorry, but this has fatigued me a lot. I get really invested in clean and clear plans, and this whole situation throwing it off course has drained my motivation greatly.

I’m delaying it by a fortnight. I do so predicting a potential backlash to this article from people in favour of Popgoes or against the decision of this site. Though I am trying to ensure this causes no drama, no doubt, drama will happen somehow. Like life, drama just finds a way. I can only hope to cull as much of it as I can, to ensure that this does not blow up any further.

Regarding the Popgoes Fandoor

I still want to do the Popgoes subsite. As I’ve said, I’ve got so much material to use. I have renders for the characters, I have all of the phone calls thanks to the diligent decompile team, the site is already laid out and I have scraped a fair few beta materials. But, the Popgoes situation is poisonous and drama-inducing to FNaFLore right now. For me personally, it’s ruined the charm of the game itself, as well as that amazing Fansong by GoMotion and Shadrow (I highly recommend it!). Not only that, but it has divided the community, which I’ll comment on later. I’m a guy who will cop to his mistakes, and I feel everything needs to settle before I even touch it again, if I ever do finish that subsite.

If I ever do complete this subsite though, it will be treated differently to the others.

Firstly, beside adding the image to the Fangame door section, I won’t advertise it whatsoever. I believe Popgoes doesn’t want it up at all, so I will meet him halfway and make sure it has no buzz at all, so to not promote the site. That said, I still hold my right to cover any game I wish under fair use. If he wants, I’ll redirect all those pages to the homepage so Reddit cannot directly link to them. Much like this opinion blog.

Secondly, it will not be out soon. If I do it, we’re talking a timeframe from a few months, to a year or more. This situation has poisoned anything that’d be behind that door, so I need to keep it down until I can not only approach it more objectively (even if the lore is mostly explained), but also so the community can settle down, and all the bad blood at least has a chance to drain.

Regarding Those Who Are Sick of This Shit

I don’t know what more I can do for you all.

To those claiming I’m doing this for the site traffic, I have posted this on my site with a Reddit redirect. It can’t be linked to from Reddit generate traffic.

To those claiming I’m doing this for the drama, I honestly have more important things to do. But morally, I have to post this. I could be making the new section, finishing the Candy subsite, finishing the various maps I’ve left unfinished etc, but this needs addressing.

To those claiming this will mean this apology will be ignored, I have put it on my site in post form, which is more permanent than a piddly Reddit thread. This means that it’ll get more publicity than any Reddit thread’s lifelong view count. I’m not shying away from this. I did this for Basetown, and because it wasn’t a Reddit thread and did not sink, it helped to solve that situation in a day. Here, it will stay up for the duration of this site’s lifespan.

Final Thoughts

Believe it or not, I’m no Youtuber or video game developer. I’m still barely used to my words having any weight. I’ve never been in a position where my words are overblown, where my opinion holds more weight in a community than the next person. It’s been an odd ride to be on, and I’m still learning to be more careful in this role.

To release this itself, it’s going to be interesting, as well as somewhat nerve-wracking. I like being totally open, so I won’t mince words. I’ve had a lot of good talks with Popgoes, but he has a reputation – particularly with those he dislikes or disagrees with. Hell, the moderation of the subreddit were hesitant to unban him due to supposed fears over him. I have no idea how this could go, but frankly, I feel that I had to say this ethically, and to be honest, there’s hardly anything that could be said of me badly, that I’ve not already said myself. Still, puts you on edge.

I’ve written this up, and it needs to go out. It has to. I’m owning up to this mistake, and though I’m sure I’ll make more (though will try to avoid them), I’ll always own up to and apologise for them.

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

The BaseTown Aftermath

So, the BaseTown thing happened and frankly, I’m somewhat still surprised.

This site started 6 months ago (5 months publicly), and since then, it has only grown stronger. It has been growing startlingly well since then, to the point that what happened just a few days ago caused a big shift in the subreddit staff.

I’ve been talking to Phisnom for a while, especially in a group chat I used to frequent, before I split off to form the FNaFlore Skype chat. Often times, when talking about the site, he had said I had seemed a bit egotistical, particularly regarding this site. I don’t want to be that person, and it seems most of that was based on talking about this site, it’s reach and traffic. For the most part, I try to avoid that. that’s not me.

What has happened on the site in recent days though have had me talking and thinking about it’s influence and power. This time, it’s no longer the “bragging” or “pride” I had in the site, but more of a place of some fear. I have never seen this much traffic in my life. In the past, whenever I’ve had an audience, I’ve fucked it all up.

The post, in 1 day, had 1983 hits – just under half of the hits The Dolls had. I’m not even joking, that’s the exact hit number. It then took 1 day and 3 hours (11 minutes and 48 seconds) until the situation was solved, and since then, the subreddit has gone from strength to strength, and that is amazing how quick it’s fixing things, even if some questions are still unanswered.

But I’m still thinking on the whole about this site’s role in all of this. When The Dolls blew up, I was suprised, but I accepted that my audience might have been somewhat large to have garnered Scott’s attention. I still feel down that Scott’s mind is probably coloured on FNaFLore due to that, but still, I then put into place plans for a personal blog system.

That system is in place, by the way. posting this on the subreddit will make the link turn into a simple homepage link. It simply will not link to the opinion section of this site.

So ok, take that on the chin. no more posting opinion stuff on the subreddit, and take steps to prevent it from blowing up. ticked on both accounts.

Then, the Flumpty door started to open, which caused the site to completely fail. It also spawned at least 5 pieces of fan art/creative works. That took me aback, but ok, probably just means that I shouldn’t set timers, or work on sorting things out so I just have to click one button. There was a fair few larger assets. sounds and images etc, fair’s fair.

Then, the BaseTown thing happened, and now I’m very, very aware of the issue of this site. I say without ego, this site is getting so big. Unless I get systems in place, I cannot put together editorials without it being scrutinised and shared en-mass. It’s taken as an extreme, rather than my thoughts and feelings on some issues, which are often more centre than left or right.

But it’s happened 3 times now, and in the wake of the BaseTown editorial, Rather than be happy for the community getting what they’ve wanted, my mind’s been focused on the statistics and change this site has caused, and it’s terrifying. I expected it to take maybe a week. Perhaps a month. Perhaps so long I had to modify the countdown to count months as well. Yet it was just over a day, and it worked. The community unified, and made themselves known through specific channels, putting on pressure to sort this out.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t know what’s my goal in writing this. I just…I feel afraid I’ll fuck all of this up, and I won’t have even known I did so until it is too late. I was working on an article outlining who Freddy_Fnaf is, and why he’s seen as a meme. If I did that now, just how much hate would he get? What pressure would it put on him?

That’s but one example, with this situation exposing much more damaging information. It’s scary to think about. Once again, this isn’t me stroking my own ego. I’ve legitimately pondered over this the last week or two.

But those are just my thoughts on all of this. I don’t know where this site is going to go, I can only hope I don’t screw it all up. If I’m lucky, I won’t mess up badly.

Still, this whole situation has been chaotic, and though it’s finally over, there’s certainly a lot more unease on my part. I’m getting just a bit more antsy about each post and page I make. I only hope these new measures will help lessen the blow my personal thoughts on drama will have on the community. These posts should be treated as one user’s opinion. Nothing more. Though the last post was meant to be a voice for the community, it shows just how much damage an opinion piece of my own could do, without the proper disclaimers and drama easing measures.

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

On the Fangames, and future releases

Hello all.

At time of writing, it is now 3AM. At time of returning to the top of this before posting, it is 3:42AM. Three hours have passed since launch, and my site is only just getting back to normal.

I am writing this as a small retrospective of the events just passed, as well as an explanation as to what went on.

I’ll start with my perspective. I was finishing up the dev logs – just about to sort out the contact pages, when the site got slower. and slower. I realised Reddit had caught on to the interactive Flumpty setup a few hours prior, and had assumed it was just a temporary inconvenience until launch.

I was wrong.

It appears you guys had decided to mob my site at the exact time the door was going to open. Ten minutes before I opened the fansite up, the entire website crashed.

I had hoped – and thankfully was proven wrong in the end – that it wasn’t a case of everyone hard-resetting. This site has limited bandwidth, and hard-resetting over and over would drain all of it, taking the site offline. Thankfully, it seemed to be a case of just, loads of users trying to access the site all at once.

This led to about half an hour of me try to navigate the backend of the site, update the relevant pages and launch the site, to stop the cloggage. Eventually, over the course of 3/4 of an hour, I managed to worm my way through this crowd and open the gates, after which the site – slowly – came back online.

There are a few things I would have got sorted if it weren’t for this, but I’m leaving that for tomorrow. That is my personal story.

Now then, onto the site perspective. For this, let me show you some stats, specifically for those stat junkies out there. Please, click the image to see them enlarged.

The site, in one hour, had over double the views of what our most popular day’s traffic was. In one, single hour.

It’s…..mind-blowing. That my site would get 30 THOUSAND views at the same time? completely amazing.

That’s why I have to cancel all timers on the fangame site. I love what has happened, but I can’t risk this happening again.

So, here’s how things are going to take place. Candy’s door is now broken, and they will all soon be without a timer.

Between 24-96 hours before release, I will update to the “animated” version of the fangame page. From there, it will be completely random when the site will go up. I will take full control. However, as soon as it goes up, I will make a post on the subreddit, at the precise time that I lower the gates. This means you can also go refresh the reddit (which can take it), rather than my site.

I’m sorry I have to switch up the method, but you guys, you fried my site. I couldn’t believe it! While that’s impressive, I need to now work around that. Sorry again if I let anyone down, but I hope you appreciate that there was basically no way, after this, that Candy’s will go according to plan either.

Thanks again for visiting the site, and I hope you enjoy the new home I’ve made for Flumpty resources and lore! The rest of the content will be coming soon, as will Candy’s content!

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

Future editorial content

So, I made a post a few days back, and made a complete blunder of it in a few ways.

I made a post on what looked to be a legal issue that could be abused if precedent is set. I had hoped to start a discussion on precedent – of which, well, a discussion of sorts took place.

I made several mistakes, and have tried to correct them. I didn’t send any emails over the situation, thinking they would not reply.

I had asked one of my gaming idols – someone known for critique – about the situation, then I used that in the article. that was not fair at all to anyone involved. I feel, asking the question in of itself was valid. precedent or not, the issue is still something to explore. But using it in the article was wrong, completely.

I also didn’t quite make it clear that it was an opinion and analysis piece. I had assumed people would take it as such, but in this day and age, assuming is rarely the best option to do.

This site is getting bigger. A lot bigger. Making that post attracted 12k visitors, and the site averages around 4k visits per day, and growing fast. That’s a hell of a lot of people, and this site only opened 4 months ago. With that uptick of publicity comes the consequence that what you post does inevitably get picked up more than it should for just an opinion piece. It’s why the internet goes crazy when Notch tweets about Mansplaining, but is fairly quiet when a relatively unknown reddit user posts up a piece on The Dolls on reddit. I can’t see the latter and think “I should be able to post something too concerning my thoughts. I have this site, I can make it look pretty good using it”.

So here’s what’s going to change there. First of all, I’m integrating the blog system into the website more, and I’m doing this for site updates. I want to try to keep this site connected and up to date.

Second, I’m going to relegate all opinion pieces to a blog that will only be found via one of the images in the sidebar. These opinion pieces will also not show up in the new links to the right of this post.

Third, I am not going to post any of those opinion pieces on the subreddit. That’s far too much publicity for what are just my thoughts on a situation.

Finally, for these posts, I’m going to take the lessons the last one has taught me and be sure to try to contact all sides.

Unbeknownst to the majority of viewers, I’ve actually got a few posts online, which are password-protected and unlisted. These posts were from previous incidents I had reported on, but left unlinked. Most of them eventually resolved various FNaF dramas, some without getting any sort of linking. They included a post about the subreddit, a specific user and a chat incident, as well as the fallout from the incident.

I can see myself needing to write more in future, as some voices do need to be heard. I already know a situation that may need one written in the future. So I’m going to keep that going, but it will be relegated to a small section on the site which will not be posted to the subreddit. It probably won’t update all that much anyway. I hope. You never know, this community is a beacon for drama.

Onto site update news, the Fangame page‘s countdown for Flumpty is almost complete! I really look forward to feedback on that section, a lot of work has been put in, with contributions from a sketch artist and a digital artist. Jonochrome himself has also been a massive help, to which I cannot be more thankful!

Due to Popgoes’ delay, I had to stop that countdown for now. It’s a real shame, but I suppose you can’t help delays in launch!

Thank you everyone for continuing to support this site. More content is coming very soon!

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com