For all of the people who passed through this account and who read the description already or who saw my general inactivity, you know where this is going. I had in mind for a few days to give some closure to this account and I knew how to do that.

I was waiting for @TotallyNotAmnidude 's recently revived "FNaF World: Ultimate" to give my last review and closure which, sure, the game had a header with absolutely no new renders or content whatsoever besides that, but it sounded promising and believable (given the sole existence of Universal Madness). I already had in mind a really positive goodbye and just showing overall excitement for the projects the community will have in store including this one and... honestly? I was looking forward to playing it.

So it felt like a light slap in the face to find out this was just an early April Fools meant as a fuck you to people who harassed the dev to see this game being made, which in turn also means fuck you to the people who actually showed excitement and cared about the game and them as a developer. Between leaving the page up and then reigniting excitement, while I perfectly understand why this was done, it still just kinda sucks that tonight the game I was looking forward to play does not exist and it kinda sucks the way it was overall handled. At least when Radiance (dev of Treasure Island) did it they had 7 Days Free which slaps even though it's not Nightmare Below Disney.

I can only imagine what the people who followed the dev and had more faith in the project than me were thinking of this. The few that even saw the posts to begin with, at least.

But I'm not here to just voice my displeasure of the way Ultimate was handled, and neither that should be the point. This just made me think in a whole different direction that is not as happy but at least it should come off as honest.

Making a fan game is hard. It's a thankless job where the only motivators are seeing the game coming to life and hopefully sharing the joy of seeing it come to life. But in practice? It's unpaid work, with a picky audience that judges you more or less harshly and that doesn't understand how hard even programming the simplest of acts actually is. That even a game that was made badly is still a game that came from a place of love for the game.

That a game such as Refreshed exists is a spectacular form of collaboration between devs that is not seen anywhere else. We can talk about The Resurrection, the 3D Unreal Engine demo or even Revelations, but until they are out they are nothing but phantoms of games. They are not released, they're not playable, so they're just really elaborate concepts with no material to show. And this is something I learned over time by watching others and also by experiencing it myself.

Some of the projects have a better chance of coming to life. Some die before even starting proper development. Every one should be celebrated for what they do, at least theoretically. But it's hard to remember this when most play really badly. The more popular ones are diamonds in the rough, made by people who can code, make graphics and have good game design.

Developers can spend 3.5 years and still have a messy, unpolished product of a game which is not that fun to play through. Every detail needs to be refined in order for the experience to truly come together. But to ask that is to ask that the fan game is truly a free game made with actual thought, made with care that not even some AAA games dare show any longer.

So while, yes, I could've been more positive, @TotallyNotAmnidude 's game is just another example of what usually happens in development. Most projects die. Some just get deleted out of existence (like the Unnamed World Project from @en-en . What happened to that? I can't find it any longer). And some are just never meant to be or get lost in a sea of other games.

This is demotivating and it's understandable. It will be very hard to surpass Refreshed even if it has many flaws and that still doesn't change, not even now. But just by sheer effort, this is the game that broke through because it's the only game that made it. It's not a small time project: it's the first FNaF World fan game with an actual huge community and ongoing support AND it has released. You can't say that for most.

The only project I think that actually has a shot of being better than Refreshed and actually being developed till the end is @LivingCorpse7 's Universal Madness. Maybe Revelations? I don't know what happened to that.

It will be a long time coming before another game with as much care shown will be making an appearance in the community, if such a game will come at all.

I will not be making any more public appearances. I will still give my support behind the scenes to Corpse but you will not hear from me again, as I have no reason to move forward with this account due to irl issues.

If you will, then it will most likely be Universal Madness related. If I ever come back to this community, you will not know this is me.

This... is the end of the road for the account. I'll keep it active as an archive and nothing more. Do not expect any posts of any kind coming from here after this one.

I apologize if you were not expecting this, but it is what it is. The journey with the community had its ups and downs, but lately it just became an additional mental toll, so that's why I'm stepping back.

I hope you have a wonderful journey in the wonderful world of Animatronica. As a final send-off, look forward to Friday. You'll understand.

See you on the flip-side. Good luck, dear reader