I try VERY hard not to judge games I’ve never played, and that goes double for games I haven’t personally looked into. It’s a good goal, and has saved me from many foot-in-mouth situations, but I’m not perfect. Sometimes I hear enough about a game to start forming opinions based on what others are saying, often without even realizing I’m doing so. Such was the case with Five Nights at Freddy’s and its sequels.

When the game was first being talked about, I somehow formed the idea that it was about college kids staying at a haunted house on a dare. I’m not even joking, and I’m not sure how that happened. I further gathered that it was a horror game based on jump scares for the “screamy” Let’s Players – two things that are not my cup of tea. (No insult meant to anyone, there.)

I knew I hadn’t played or even looked at the game, but underneath those logical thoughts were all kinds of assumptions.

Last night, random Youtube binging led me to catch up on what Jim Sterling has been up to. When I got to his Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 video, I paused to go back and see what he thought of the others. After watching his short first look plays on each game in the series, and being interested enough to look up the wiki, it was clear to me that most of my “obvious” assumptions about the games were incorrect.

(Errr, I mean other than completely missing the actual setup! A security guard there because of his job, and later a kid in his room at night, are both more interesting to me than college kids out on a dare. Also, Freddy’s is not so much a haunted house.) Continue Reading