A different article than what I'm used to writing: here I show you which fan games impressed me and which ones I didn't care for. If you want to find a fan game you like but don't know where to look, why not start here?
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A very important premise
Now, I know I won't be talking too well about a few of them. But let me be clear: these are games that were made by fans, for fans. It's absolutely amazing that people with talent spent their time making fan games of FNaF World for the people to enjoy! Most of these are passion projects and I highly doubt if there is even one of them where the people working on it are getting paid for it. The developers should absolutely be respected for even trying their best here and none deserve any form of hate. While I severely doubt this could even happen, I'll still write that I do not condone any sort of behavior that is or is comparable to hate against the devs. Constructive criticism is important, yes, but outright hate is just being a jerk.
Another thing: these are just my personal opinions. This is a subjective list: everybody is entitled to have their own opinion on these fan games, thanks to the freedom of speech.
On another note, I highly suggest starting with the OG FNaF World rather than jumping right in on the fan games, if you still haven't. It'll really give you means to compare them properly! I even got a guide on how to do it on a Mac (here's the guide: https://gamejolt.com/p/tips-how-to-play-fnaf-world-its-fan-games-on-a-mac-or-at-least-7mrxa9dx)
The games are presented in no particular order. This isn't a ranking: just a recommendation! I'm talking only about the ones I tried and worked: I can't tell anything about the others. With that out of the way, let's begin!
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Honorary mentions to look out for
Here are a few games with a lot of promise that you might not see in Page 1 of Gamejolt (yet): games that are still not out, but show so much potential!

FNaF World: Universal Madness (by @LivingCorpse7 )
A game I've been looking forward to ever since I set my eyes upon it (and you can confirm this by even just checking where I post ). Fantastic models, new moves, new modes, fully fledged and developed skins, an encyclopedia, FAN GAME UNIVERSES, reworked encounters, quests and more, this really does feel like FNaF World 2! Reworked animations, models, moves, maps, new areas... check it out for yourselves!
It has three videos on the development and more on the creation of the fan game models! If you like what you see, check out his DeviantArt and his YouTube channel: you won't be disappointed!

FNAF World: Strings (by @Dave_Miller789 )
Have you ever wanted a darker take on FNaF World? Were you among the ones lamenting the absence of the unnerving feeling you get from the first games? This might be for you then. Delving into Kenophobia, the fear of empty spaces, and the digital horror trope, this is a complete reinterpretation of what we know and love.
Three modes, wide worlds, a reimagined new chip system, uncanny graphics and more... come see what the game has to offer. If you ever dare, that is.
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I highly recommend these!
Games in this list are all interesting and fun! Every one of them is worth your time in my honest opinion! They all bring a different thing to the table, making you end up with a proper feast!

FNaF World: Refreshed 1.5 (by @Pyturret )
You know the game: the YouTubers are playing it, the community is playing it and probably your grandma too at this point. A really high effort FNaF fan game, in its 1.5 version it packs a mighty punch, with new enemies, characters, moves, a whole skin system, endless mode, time bonuses, special moves, 4 moves, reworked models and more! What more can you ask for?
I highly suggest entering the Discord, even with an unclaimed account (like I did), to snatch the 1.5 version of the game. It contains a lot of new content: make sure you have the hot fix with Candy Cadet coded in!
The models look convincing enough in game to pass off as official, should you not think about it actively. These are the best models so far created for a released fan game. I'm a guy who looks a lot at graphics, they are very important: and these look pretty darn good. A feast for the eyes, you won't get bored soon with this fan game in your hands!

FNaF World Redacted (by @GBAura )
The subtitle fits perfectly: this indeed is almost exactly FNaF World, but the things that it does change make it so much better. Let's start off with 4 moves, some reworked too. Let's keep the ball rolling with a completely revamped character encounter system: not just more likely to find them, but area locked, with personalized dialogue for each and with the possibility to bribe them in. And this little change (alongside many other ones)... it makes the whole difference. And somehow, the game becomes so much more fun than it ever was. No Glitch Area shenanigans: you've gotta work for it, but oh will it feel good (and I'm usually the guy to use the skips when I can)!

FNaF World Simulator (by @CrashKandicoot )
Ever wanted an actual challenge in FNAF World? Ever wondered what it feels like to play as the enemy side? Wonder no more! FNaF World Simulator is here and it's a magnificent addition to the fan game pool! Featuring a fantastic story, a fabulous finale, playable bosses and new lovable mini-games and reworked encounters, this fan game is one of the most iconic you can find on the wide web, when it comes to FNaF World games! This is absolutely a must: it turns the game in a constantly uphill battle against the once good guys. It's absolutely enthralling!

FNaF World Randomizer (by @K-C_rwq )
Do you feel tired about playing the same, trite game? Wanna change it up? How about just randomizing every single little thing possible? Randomize the characters! Randomize the moves! Heck, randomize fish movement and the fish themselves in the DeeDee mini-game! Absolute chaos where nothing is as it seems, fight Chillax as a boss and defeat unlikely combinations of characters! With four different modes, the playful chaos feels unending, but endlessly fun (Mwahahaha)!

FNaF World: QoL Mod (by @K-C_rwq )
Wow, two games in the list? This mod might not look like it adds much if you only remain stuck on the name, but as soon as you see that little Fight! button, as soon as you realize you can switch between Party, Chips and Bytes wherever you are... as soon as you see toggable difficulty, enemy HP bars, changeable levels, teams not necessarily needing 8 characters and customizable move sets... you realize you fell in a sandbox. A really fun one, at that. Perfect for any challenge run you got, perfect to test combinations of characters and moves you could never even dare, this is the ultimate fix to FNaF World: it adds nothing new in terms of content, but it adds so much in terms of mental health to the player and in terms of customizable content, and I thank you very much for that!

FNaF World Fixed (by @plushcabinet )
You know how buggy the OG is when this little gem pops up. This really lives up to its name: it's finally fixed. While the Save button went for a permanent smoke break, an Options buttons appears (delightfully in the same exact style as the others) with so much more going on than you may realize. The game fixes it all and reworks it (for instance, Auto: Shield also adds the Bubble Breath effect!): everything feels smoother, everything feels much nicer than it ever was. This, alongside QoL, is the version of the OG FNaF World you should be playing right now. Experience all of the charm of the original in a form that doesn't denature it at all: with the possibility to mod from these files, I can't find myself recommending this enough!

Fnaf World: Overturned 1.0 (by @Boneto276 )
Do you want some more content? Do you wish to play as the enemy side? To see Sister Location finally added? Have you ever wanted to play as Virtua-Freddy? Now you can! Basing itself on FNaF World: Fixed, this game, with updates still in-development, presents itself as a slightly better version of Fixed. It reworks the map in a way that doesn't feel oppressive or unnecessary, it adds custom character icons to the new additions alongside the new animatronics. From the addition of the Mechrab in Dusting Fields, which makes the search for an Unscrew user useless (it can use Unscrew!), to the funny Ghost Freddy which only knows Haunting, why not give this fan game a go? While the models might not always be up to snuff, it's not something you'll ever find yourself minding while playing this game! It's certainly not lacking in fun and there is even more to come! Definitely a very recent game to look out for! Be sure to check it out from time to time!
Very conflicted

FNaF World: Corrupted Chaos (by @Weirado )
I couldn't put this in the section below because it doesn't deserve it at all. I think it's best to say, given it's only a demo we got so far but it's a pretty vast demo, that it's not for me. The art style is great, the animations burst with life and color (except weird cases that I can count with the fingers on one hand: why's Fredbear looking a thousand miles ahead?) and the world is wide. So... what's the problem?
It's too wide. Even the battles feel too wide, too empty. The screen angle makes some things look... weird. It also feels cramped, for some reason. The battle system was also rethought: I'm ok with how it was rethought, mostly (like Regen Cake being a thing now). I'm not ok, however, with the fact that now you only get one team. That's a bummer: it kills strategies that could've been used and running just became more useless. I'm not that happy that Impossible mode feels... impossible. Only having a team means that things get much harder, and I made guides for Difficulty 20 and 1000. It... doesn't feel fun. It honestly feels exactly that: impossible, and not how it should feel, very hard but possible. I'm sure with the right bytes it's beatable, but it's something that stuck to me and made the game feel a lot less fun. Why put a difficulty like that when it's literally impossible? Maybe it isn't, but that's not how it felt.
Ultimately, I suggest you try it yourself: the game presents so much personality that you should give it a go. It would be criminal to put this in the "Not recommended" section, because again, it's not deserving of it at all. Seriously, try this out yourself!
I can't recommend these
This is a sad section: no game should find itself here. However, what was presented wasn't just something that wasn't for me, but actively made the game worse than the OG in my opinion. That's my criteria for not recommending: if it's on par or better than the OG, I would definitely recommend it. Heck, even if it's slightly worse I would. But what I present here is something I feel, sadly, is worse.

FNaF World Ultra 1.0.3 (by @Sprenglok31 )
Oh boy. So... why is it here? Quick premise: the game bases itself on Fixed, so base game is fine. It uses the BennetJL pack for models, while coding and animations are done by the main dev.
Now, I managed to play this, even though I'm on Mac, and I saw no discernible bugs, so that's good. It plays out as it should. But... sadly, I don't like a lot of it:
the models used are not my favorite: from a toy Glitchtrap to an off-putting Ennard, the models range from ok to not great. But the models are also used by Overturned. So why do these look bad here but not there? One reason is this: the animations are stiff. They lack character. That's what drags the models down even more. Heck, check out FNaF World: Update 3 Expansion by @crashl_dev
: same models, but the animations burst with life! The models manage to sing and to look genuinely good here because the animations speak for themselves. Here, they don't. They look stiff and that's it
there is no point in having the FNAF World story. There is no point in collecting the OG characters through battles other than completionism. Wanna know why? I'll tell you why: go behind Lolbit in World 1. I'm pretty sure that's how I unlocked Fourth Closet Funtime Freddy. It gives you a character with Alarm, but lemme be real, it doesn't matter if you skip this step. Nothing matters. Just die once, get Tombstone which acts like Shadow Freddy. Go to the Choppy's Woods mine to grab Lefty and Helpy, which both have Gift Boxes. Helpy has Cosmic Song, Gift Boxes and Bubble Breath. That's nuts. Now head to Lilygear Lake to get Glitchtrap in the Glitch World and if you wish, kill the Mediocre Melodies and place Orville. Now you have a character with 4th Wall + Slasher, two gift Boxes and two cosmic Songs. That's it. Nothing matters. You take 15 minutes to get here. This is stupid. You just made everything redundant. The sad part is that these are all successive additions to the first version. This makes playing the game useless: you can kill Chica's Magic Rainbow with a bit of luck. No, seriously. You got Slasher and Fourth Wall, just grab Endless: Speed, Auto: Mimic and Auto: Shield (10-15 minutes at best to snatch all of them) to really just go to the most complicated boss and kill it if you wished by the fourth area. This is dumb
bad move combinations. All around, bad move combinations kill the game. Some are just dog dung, some are insanely busted (Porkpatch sucks, Helpy is a god? Why). This connects to the previous issue
weird map additions. Was the Glitch World necessary to unlock Glitchtrap, but mostly why does it look like a plane? FNAF World plays like a 2.5D game. This feels like it's missing that .5D. Also, why is there a random ball pit near Lilygear Lake for Into the Pit Springbonnie? Why was it put there and not, I don't know, in Pinwheel Circus/Funhouse where it would feel slightly more natural?
the new moves are... weird or badly programmed. Alarm targets one enemy, even when it's dead, and all orbs spawn in the same exact location. Also, why does Withered Golden Freddy have a move called "Head"? What name is that for a move?
lazy unlock methods. The game just puts a popper to represent the character on the map, or asks you to fight with specific characters to get a new one or to walk to a door. All in a guide you get (probably) by end game: that's lazy. At least put the character model for the poppers, it makes it clear you unlocked a character. Heck, why not reuse the Halloween Update unlock screen? It surely makes it more personalized!
The game plays out badly in the end. I'm sorry, but it feels like a content farm game more than a genuine fan game. I wish I could say otherwise, because so far the only selling point is the amount of characters it throws at you. Given it only adds characters and changes nothing else of the map or of other game aspects, it might be better to have a lot less of them but to add them with thought and care than to dump them to the player without a second thought. A heavy rewrite of the characters in the game would be needed to fix it in my opinion. Perhaps in following versions, some of the problems might be fixed (such as the animations), which is what I'm hoping to see, because it doesn't deserve to be in this section.
EDIT: dev left a comment. Good luck with fixing the game!

FNaF World - Rewritten 1.8 (by @Eliass_ )
Not much to say. It plays like FNaF World, but the map is different. I'd suggest waiting for 2.0, where the game will undoubtedly be in a much better state, but the map rearrangement, the main selling point, is... bad.
Lolbit in World 1 is now inaccessible. Find: Characters is now just outside in Dusting Fields (which is lacking a cave. Thanks for the chip this early I guess?). Some spaces have become so wide to maybe trigger Kenophobia, some assets now overlap (the mushrooms in Lilygear Lake). They are empty. There is nothing going on in these spaces. Oh, also, the rock to access the Glitch World is still present, but because it's outside of the boundary you get to have the Glitch World, it leads to nowhere. Oh, also you're not going to Glitch World with this rock, you remain still in Dusting Fields (because it was just moved to somewhere else). So... a red chest just became inaccessible. Ouch.
I suggest waiting a bit, the game's got promise. So far, I'm not sure what was play tested, because some things are... evidently off. But still, I'm awaiting with curiosity version 2.0. It needs some more tuning: the version we got feels like a tech demo. Again, best to wait: don't put the game off yet, it just needs a little fixing!
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So here is the full list! What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? If there is any fan game you'd like to see here, don't hesitate to ask! I'll see what I can do (some fan games, my wrapper can't read too well) and if I can play it, I most certainly will! I hope all of the devs good luck with their endeavors!
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