On March 19th, 2016, FNaF World Simulator was published to Game Jolt.
It has now been 10 years since the game's creation!

For this very special occasion, I will be taking a look back on the journey up to this point, and dive into the game's history, the development process, as well as my thoughts on the experience!

If you would like to join me on this retrospective, buckle up, because this will be a long post!

What's new in version 1.1.2

I have also just released a new version to FNaF World Simulator! However, I want to preface this by saying that there is no new content in this new version. Just to quell any expectations people might have!

This new version brings optimizations that should make the game faster, a handful of mostly minor bugs and errors being fixed, and a number of mistakes in the game's dialogue being corrected. These are generally smaller changes, but important ones nonetheless, and I'd highly recommend you to update your game for the best experience!

As I've said before in a previous devlog, the update 1.1.0 was the final new content release for this game, and any releases after that would only be for polishing up what is already there.

It's been a long time since I last released a new version, about 3 years ago! Some may find it odd that I'm releasing something new after such a long time, assuming the game was left behind... but in my view, if I am still capable and willing to work on the game, and I find that there is a good enough reason to go back and fix/tweak some things in the game, then I don't see why I shouldn't do so to make the game better for anyone who might be playing it in the future!

That is all for the new version!

SPOILER WARNING!

I will now be talking freely about the game up ahead, which includes spoilers!

You should probably avoid reading the rest of this post if you haven't finished the game and don't want any surprises ruined!

Now, with the 10th anniversary upon us, let's delve into the history of FNaF World Simulator, shall we?

The origin of FNaF World Simulator

So, how did the idea for this game come about? To explain that, let's first go on a brief little history lesson! Around a decade ago, there were plenty of FNaF fan games of the "Simulator" genre coming out, where you generally took on the role of the animatronics and had the goal of reaching the night guard, basically a role reversal. Before I made FNaF World Simulator, I actually made two games, Five Nights at Candy's Simulator and a sequel! (Although they were of pretty poor quality, since I was only a beginner at the time...)

Then, later down the line, January 2016 comes around, and FNaF World is released! I remember just how excited I was about that game back then, the concept, the characters, the gameplay, and just how unique it was compared to any previous FNaF game... I was really lost in that world, and I remember spending a lot of time thinking about the game and watching various YouTubers playing it.

Since I had made two Simulator games in the past, the idea eventually came to my mind at some point about what that concept of role reversal would look like if it were done to FNaF World. At first, I don't think I considered the idea of making this game very seriously, in part because I thought someone else would likely create a project with that concept first. But the idea kept forming in my mind, and I grew more and more fond of it... I was really pumped about FNaF World, and the thought of getting to make a game of my own in its style seemed like it would be really, really fun.

I was beginning to feel very strongly about making this game, but before I made a final decision, I went on Game Jolt and searched to see if anyone else had the same idea first, because I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. No results came up.

It was then that I decided I would be making FNaF World Simulator.

Revealing the game & releasing the demo

I began working on the game not long after, and then after making some decent progress in development, I began setting up its Game Jolt page, and eventually published it for all to see on March 19th, 2016! (Curiously, as of writing this, the page incorrectly says that it was published on August 31st of 2018 instead, for some reason. I can't seem to fix it, and I have no idea how this happened, but I presume it is due to some error on Game Jolt's part.)

Around a month after publishing the game's page, I released a demo for people to get a taste of the game (technically I released two demos, but the first was only live for a short time and few saw it), and it really got a lot of eyes on the game! Tons of people started talking about it, and making videos on it... the YouTubers I watched play FNaF World were now playing my own game! And just generally, there was a ton of support expressed for the game and its concept, and it was all very gratifying and encouraging.

That being said, I am very far from proud of that demo, and in fact I am actually quite embarrassed by it! It was such a buggy mess, and the writing was seriously poor, along with there being tons of weird creative choices about it. Despite this, I recognize that there are people who are fond of that demo, and I can understand that for its different aesthetics and mechanics which didn't carry over into the final game.

But to be honest, back then I was less experienced, and I had the habit of adding a ton of things into the game just because I thought they seemed cool, and a lot of it made very little sense and would have turned the game very awkward to play and bloated. When I think about it, I feel very fortunate and grateful for how much excitement and faith people had that this game would be good, even though I only had what was in my opinion a very janky demo for a proof-of-concept.

The lead-up to the full release

The road from here leading up to the full game's release was very memorable for me. Thanks in no small part to the demo making more people aware of the game, there was now a sizeable audience waiting for the game.

I remember it well: nearly every single day, there would be people coming to the game's page to leave comments, even though I rarely posted any news. Back in the day, I had percentages on the game's description that measured how far along parts of the game were finished, and you would see some recurring users posting in the comments who'd come to see if the progress changed. With time, there even started being some familiarity among the users, with them expecting to see each other. It was like a small community of its own, and it was a very cool thing to see!

It really motivated me seeing people so invested in the game, and posting as often as they did. Whether to discuss the game, to tell me they were waiting patiently, or to tell me I was taking too long- all of it really did push me even further. Seeing their level of commitment made me want to match that level of commitment, too!

But, although I was fully determined to get this game out to people, there would be lots of difficulties along the way. To start, some time after releasing the demo, and I don't even remember how, I ended up losing the files for the game. That stung a lot at first, but it did turn out to be a good thing after I thought about it some more.

I'm sure I had an earlier version of the game backed up which I could have gone back to and remade the progress I had lost, but I saw this as an opportunity to remake the game from scratch instead. Like I said, the demo had a lot of issues, and I wasn't feeling very satisfied with the direction the game was going. Redoing everything would allow me to start over from a clean slate, better organized, and with a better idea of what I wanted the game to be, rather than try to rework the demo to fix its many design issues.

And so, the game went from the "demo" version to the "final" version which you are familiar with today. Among the many changes, the overworld was now 3D, the roster was bigger, characters could have more than 3 attacks, and you could now play as the boss characters. It was nagging me a lot that you couldn't do so in the demo... isn't it so much cooler to actually be able to play as the bosses? The game was now going on a path I was much more content with, and confident in.

Things were moving along pretty well from there, until another technical issue would afflict me. Some time during the first half of 2017, my computer stopped working entirely. This was, of course, pretty bad, as I no longer had any way to work on the game. I had set a release year of 2017, and I had good reason to think it would have been ready in time, but my computer dying threw a wrench into things, and nearly the whole rest of the year went by without me being able to continue developing the game.

It was a pretty difficult period, not being able to work on the game for so long. But, despite not being able to make direct progress on the game, I wouldn't say the time was a complete waste. I had a lot of time to think about the game, and I formed various different concepts for the game in my head during that time. In fact, the whole idea for Golden Bouncepot, a character whose moves you can customize, I came up with during that time. If my computer hadn't died, I don't think the character would have existed. And just in general, I think having that long pause benefited the game in the end, as my writing abilities and game design philosophy had evolved during that time, too.

I finally had a new computer in my hands around the end of 2017, and development was kicked right back into gear. I had up to the start of Lilygear Lake worked on in my last saved backup, so I picked up from there. The path ahead was clear now, and things were finally looking up again! Development moved along generally smoothly from that point onward!

There were even more technical issues that I came across all throughout development than what I've mentioned here, though! So, as you can tell, there were a lot of hardships during the making of this game. Yet, in spite of everything that occurred, my resolve to finish and release this game stayed absolute the whole way through. Many turbulent times came to pass that set development back, but I cannot overstate how determined I was that nothing would stop me from completing this game, however long it took, even if I had to remake the game a dozen times. I was committed to giving the fans the game they were counting on me to deliver.

And then, finally, on July of 2018, that goal would be fulfilled.

FNaF World Simulator is released

After 2 years in development, FNaF World Simulator was ready at last, and on the first day of July, I announced the release date for later that week! I remember coming up with the exact design for the release date image in my head a long time before, just waiting for this very moment...

And then, on July 6th of 2018, the game was published for all to play! I remember how surreal that moment felt, to be wrapping up a project I'd spent so long devoting myself to, and to finally have other people getting their hands on it. There were a lot of expectations surrounding it, and I really hoped the game would deliver!

So then when people began sharing their opinions about the game online, I was very heartened to see that they were by and large very positive! People were complimentary of how much it did to give a new spin on FNaF World, bringing new mechanics, a new story, and a newly-designed world to explore. Some people also added that it got some things right that FNaF World missed the mark on, which I was very pleased by, because one of the things I specifically set out to do with this game was indeed to amend some of the criticisms people had about FNaF World.

People often spoke about how they wanted to use their favorite characters in FNaF World, but were discouraged from it, because the characters weren't very balanced. A level 1 character from lower in the roster was miles more powerful than a character placed higher in the roster, even at a high level! The attacks in the game ranged from less than 30 damage, to hundreds upon hundreds of damage, so they were clearly not balanced with each other.

I really wanted to hone in on this, and make it so that at a base level, none of the characters and attacks are significantly more powerful than others, so any character in the roster would be good enough to be added into the party if the player wanted them. This meant that the damage output in my game was much more tightly executed. In other words, all attacks generally did less damage compared to before, keeping attacks more balanced with each other, rather than having any of them being grossly more powerful.

This decision did draw criticism, with some players expressing that moves felt too weak. This was extended to the Bytes too, some of them doing as low as 1 point of damage, significantly lower than the original game! But, it was designed this way to match the game generally having lower damage, and lower HPs as a result. If the Bytes did as much damage as in the original, battles would end very fast, without you even needing to do anything! I thought a lot about keeping things balanced and not having anything that would make the game too easy, and I do admit I overcompensated for that in some places. Some moves were waaay too weak at launch. (Although, in the 1.1.0 update, I revamped a lot of the worse attacks to make them more useful, so I would say it got better in that regard!)

On the other hand, one thing which people had very glowing things to say about, was the game's story and the characterization. FNaF World was a bit lackluster in terms of story, and for having such a large cast of characters, everyone except for Fredbear had next to no character. In FNaF World Simulator, every character was given their own distinct personalities, and there's a whole new story of big stakes! It was a great feeling to see people becoming so invested in this story I had come up with, and really grow determined to take Freddy down and save Animatronica.

And hey, speaking of Freddy, why don't we take some time to talk about our main antagonist for a little while?

Freddy Fazbear

When it came to figuring out what the main villain would be like, everything kind of came together pretty naturally.

There was of course the intuitive thought to make Freddy the main antagonist seeing as you face against the animatronics in this game, and Freddy is the main character of the series and FNaF World.

Along with that though, I thought it would make for an interesting narrative to write his motivations from a sort of meta perspective, taking the idea of how in FNaF World you would almost always be switching him out for stronger characters as the game progresses because Freddy is too weak to be viable in the late game, and using that as a reason for him to be resentful over being left out, and seeking out power.

Another element that played a key role in shaping Freddy is actually a personal anecdote. I had always been fascinated by villains who were incredibly powerful, that made you wonder "how in the world will the heroes win against this?" I can recall coming up with stories since I was very young that featured incredibly over-powered villains! So, as you can tell, that paved the way to how Freddy was portrayed in my own game.

It also worked from a meta perspective again, with how your main opponent is extremely powerful, it resembled how it would be like if you were on the opposing end of somebody who cheated in their save file to give a character a really high level!

And with all that, the stage was set for the character. You do not meet him until the very end, but his influence is felt everywhere as you progress. There are also occasional cutscenes that show what is happening around Freddy at the moment, where you get to see him being ruthless and showcasing his immense power, making you better understand why so many characters are hopeless and afraid of him. Everything builds up around meeting with Freddy, until the moment you finally get to confront him and take him down.

I was pretty happy with how he came out as an antagonist, and seeing how much people took him as a "someone you love to hate" type of character, I'd say I was pretty successful with him!

Moving along, another thing I really wanted for this game was for it to feel alive, and always have something inventive going on. In the original FNaF World, the overworld was mostly just a place to walk around, explore, and traverse from one place to the other. I wanted to add a lot more interactivity to it, so players would find themselves chopping down stumps and rocks, sliding on ice, diving underwater, dodging flashlights, and even maneuvering across platforms atop lava! This philosophy extended to other parts of the game besides the overworld, too, of course! Just in general, I wanted there to be a lot of creativity poured into this game, and I was very happy to see that this was something people seemed to really appreciate and enjoy with this game!

When people speak of my fan game, I often see it described as a worthy successor to FNaF World, and that's something I feel very grateful for, as well as very content that this game was well liked enough by people to receive this type of acclaim. It was a long wait for this game to come out, no doubt, but I'm glad that in the end I was able to deliver something people were happy with. That was all I hoped for!

Now, the game was done, and although it still felt strange to no longer have this big project to be working on, and thinking about, and building towards; for the time being, I could just sit back, relax, and enjoy seeing the online discussions surrounding the game, as well as watch the gameplay videos people were making.

Conceptualizing the update

With the game finally out there, I was satisfied with it. I really had no plans of going back and adding new content later. I only intended to be releasing new versions for bug fixes and the like. Everything I wanted to put in the game, I had already done so, so there's no reason for going back!

...Well, that is, except for one thing. Before releasing the game, I wanted there to be a way of replaying past boss fights. I found it really difficult to figure out a way to organically fit that into the game, though. How would it make sense for you to experience those battles again? Time travel? Yeah, absolutely not. That would be opening up a huge can of worms! So, with this being something I was frankly stumped on, I ended up leaving that idea out of the game. It wasn't anything crucial, anyway.

A lot of time went by, and at some point in the latter half of 2019, I randomly started thinking about that idea again. I thought, what if I could make this feature work if you didn't literally refight the bosses, but instead, you fought illusions mimicking the bosses? That would solve every issue: you could fight bosses that wouldn't logically be possible to fight again, you could fight bosses with characters who are now on your team, and with something as flexible as illusions, I could make it so you could customize their stats and even fight bosses you didn't previously encounter. It felt frankly kind of obvious in hindsight, but hey, I had finally figured out a way to make it work!

Feeling fond of that idea, I eventually decided that I would be implementing said feature to the game in the next version. Indeed, new content was going to be added! At first though, it was only going to be a small thing. I intended to just add said feature, and a couple extra cutscenes addressing some loose ends in the story I wanted to tie up.

However, the more I thought about it, the more my plans grew, and eventually, I was looking to be adding a whole new world, and a new character. The plan was to have a little complementary adventure that you'd have to go through in order to unlock the boss replay feature, as well as a new character. It was far simpler, though: there were only 4 Power Orbs in total which you had to collect, you only had to do some short challenges to get them, there were no new bosses, and Rainbear was not even designed as an antagonist at this point in development!

I sat with those plans for a while, but at the back of my mind, something really wasn't clicking for me. It felt lacking. It felt like it was missing a punch to it. I was going to be adding brand new content to this game, and it should be a big thing, but with these ideas I had, it felt like I was only halfway committing to it. Then, I knew it was time to revamp things.

This was now going to be a whole new side story. There would now be 8 Power Orb missions, 10 new bosses battles, tons and tons of new cutscenes, and Rainbear would now be turned into a main villain for the update.

Now that felt more like something to be excited about. If I'm going to be adding new content, I should go all in, and make it as big as I can! It is funny in retrospect just how much direction it gave the project to make Rainbear the villain. Just going to a new world in search of orbs, completing some challenges with no real opposing force, felt really lackluster to me. It made the new content feel like it had no purpose. Now, you had someone going directly against your goals, someone to fight against! It gave the update an actual tangible story, and a real reason to care. Things really started to make sense from this point forward!

To tell the truth however, I was very, very against the idea of adding a new villain at first. I always wanted Freddy to be the main villain of the game, and I really did not want to make him lesser by adding another villain who was "bigger and badder" and "the true final boss". With that in mind, I really wanted to try working Rainbear into the game without diluting Freddy. One big thing I did was that you did not need to beat the main story in order to access the new adventure, which would technically have made Rainbear the "true" final boss. You could access and complete it as early as reaching Dusting Fields, which doubly worked because I didn't want to force players to go through the whole game just to see the new content!

Working from the initial idea to add a feature where illusions would mimic boss fights, I fleshed out that concept further, and I thought it would be interesting to write a story centered around illusions; the implications and repercussions of a power that can make others believe something that feels incredibly real, but that is actually fake, and the different ways that power can be used. There was a lot of potential with this idea, and it was something that would be very fun and flexible to play with in the game. You could make pretty much anything happen, when you're playing with illusions!

It is kind of crazy how the whole update originated from an idea to replay bosses that I couldn't figure out, and everything just sprouted from there. I sure am glad I got stumped on it back in the day!

The update 1.1.0 is announced

With a solid idea formed for the update, on February 13th of 2020, I announced my plans to be releasing a new update to FNaF World Simulator adding lots of new content! It was a really big moment- One year and a half after the game was released, I was announcing a comeback!

I was even more secretive about this update and its contents than I was about the main game. I hinted at new cutscenes, new features, and a new world and character, but gave no specifics. I only allowed a single direct clue: that the new world was a place players had seen before. From there, a flurry of people started making their own guesses as to what this new world could be!

The great majority of people guessed that the Halloween world from FNaF World's Update 2 was going to be it, and it was a good guess, but as we all now know, I was referring to Rainbow Land instead. I even had an extra little hint on the announcement image which people missed: the "new world" text was colored in rainbows! So that's that, case closed, Rainbow Land it is, right? Except, you later find out in the game that there's not just one, but two new worlds in this update, and the Halloween Update Backstage is an accessible area, too! I was always a fan of exceeding people's expectations where I could...

When I announced that I would be adding a single new playable character to the game, I knew from the start that might not strike people as the most exciting thing, due to it being just one character. I knew since early on that the character roster would be expanded, but the final shape it would take took a while to be settled on. At different times in development, I played around with ideas to add multiple different characters that you'd unlock throughout the update. However, there were a number of things that made me ultimately decide against that.

Firstly, the game was balanced and fine-tuned to the existing characters and their moveset, and I didn't want to add a bunch of new ones to throw off that balance. Secondly, if I added a bunch of characters, the most likely outcome would have been that most people, frankly, would just not use them. It would be hard to give players a justification for switching a new set of characters into their party without them being OP and breaking the game. And finally, I didn't feel that the new characters would be very meaningful. They would have been cool, certainly, but shallow. Rainbear was built up throughout the story, and him being added to your party at the end felt like an appropriate conclusion to the update's story, with weight behind it. Meanwhile, if you just got a bunch of random characters, those wouldn't have much impact to them, and it would dilute Rainbear, too. I felt it was a better choice to reserve the big moment of unlocking a new character for the end, and make it something memorable and unique.

All that being said, there was a special trait to Rainbear which made him unlike any other playable character: he could use the moveset of any of the animatronics! This meant that he was the equivalent of 48 characters in one! There may have just been a single unlockable character in the update, but I thought this feature should certainly amend that, at least!

Anyway, with the update now revealed to the public, it was time to get back to working on the update full steam ahead!

The road to the update 1.1.0

As I mentioned earlier, my goal with this new version was to go all in with it and make it a huge update in every front, and not just with the new content!

I made countless quality-of-life changes to the game, to make it the best experience possible. Among the many changes, I revisited each of the game's attacks: moves that were too weak were made stronger, and some of the attack animations were polished up, too! I also remade various graphics in the game to look up to par with the quality standard I wanted, improved various texts and dialogues in the game, made many bug fixes to make the game as stable as possible, as well as many others things most people wouldn't even notice, but that all come together to make the game just that much better!

And when it came to the new content, I really felt I had upped my game in every aspect. Just like before, a focus of mine was to make this game feel alive, and I think it's safe to say I really cranked it up to 11 with this update. There were tons of new mechanics in the overworld, cutscenes had more things moving and happening, the boss battles had various unique gimmicks to them, there was even a minigame with voice acting! A lot of work and effort was put into making every corner of the update feel special!

Another area of the update I felt was a substantial step up was the writing, since I became a lot better at storytelling, as well as character writing. I had a lot of fun doing the dialogue for the update, and I got to explore things I couldn't in the main game, like writing a whodunit mystery plot with Phantom Chica and Phantom Foxy! It was really awesome working on that, and it also turned out to be a particularly part to watch people's reactions to!

The whole section in the Halloween Update Backstage was also extremely fun to do. Throughout the game, most dialogue involves different characters talking to your party leader, with them usually not responding with their own dialogue. That services the game perfectly well, of course, but it doesn't allow for a lot of character back-and-forths when it's just one person speaking. The update had multiple cutscenes with more than one character speaking, but especially so in the H.U.B., with a different team taking the lead and interacting in cutscenes. I had a very unique opportunity to write multiple characters who had their own personalities and stories with one another, and make them play off of each other, have fun banter, and develop throughout the course of the mission. It was a very character-focused part of the game, and I was quite proud of it!

And of course, I couldn't forget to mention the one and only Rainbear, who was a very entertaining character to write the whole way through. Be it with his dialogue and his personality, or the various creative ways he tries to trick the heroes, he always had something going for him that made him fun to work with.

Actually, while on the topic of the greatest trickster of Rainbow Land, how about we go over his creation?

Rainbear

Rainbear was a very fun character to come up with.

As the second main antagonist of the game, he would contrast Freddy in many ways. Unlike him, who boasted immense power and had a very cruel demeanor, Rainbear is a pretty regular guy in terms of power, and far more comedic in tone. This meant that he would pose a threat to the protagonists not through his physicality, but through his wit, constantly pulling different tricks on you to achieve his goals, so it takes outsmarting him in order to win.

Another way he contrasted Freddy was in terms of presence. Freddy was a distant threat that always loomed over the story, whom you only got to meet at the end, meanwhile Rainbear was far more active as a villain and constantly butted heads with the heroes himself.

And then finally, when Rainbear is at his most powerful having obtained all of the Power Orbs, his power comes in a completely different form than just being strong like Freddy, instead having illusory powers that make him formidable in his own way.

All of these things combined into making Rainbear feel unique, and also distinct from the other antagonist in the game, and I am pretty content with how he turned out. And, most importantly, people seem to have become quite fond of the character too, which I am really happy about!

It should be pretty clear that this was a pretty full update with a lot of big things going for it. It was as fun as it was laborious to program all the different ideas I had!

Compared to the main game, there were definitely less technical troubles I had to deal with during the development for the update, but it still took a long time to be finished! There were a lot of complex mechanics and systems that had to be done right, and in the background I also had to manage working with the voice actors for the Foxy Fighters section, as well as a composer to produce music for the game! (All of whom were very gracious and nice to work with, by the way!)

I remember it feeling like a lot of work, and like the finish line was very far away. And indeed, it was distant, but as time marched on, with each piece of dialogue completed, with each new mechanic implemented, that finish line seemed closer and closer, until finally, without warning...

The release of update 1.1.0

After 2 years in development, on December 1st of 2021, the update 1.1.0 was published for everyone to play! There was no release date or anything- I just dropped it suddenly one day!

I was feeling the same way I did back when I released the game in 2018 all over again... I had, once again, reached the end of a long cycle working on this game! It's a bit funny, but after dedicating so long on this, it took some time to adjust to the fact that it was over, and I wouldn't have to work on it anymore.

Finally, the update was out there, and people could experience it for themselves. There were a lot of reactions to it, but the largest initial sentiment that resonated among people was definitely one thing: the update was hard!

Of course, the update wasn't designed that way by accident. I always planned for the new content to be harder than the main game, keeping in mind that despite being accessible since early on, a lot of players would be entering it after becoming really good, or even masters at the game! I was conscious that people would struggle with different parts of the update, which is a big reason why I made every Power Orb mission (minus the first and last) accessible at any order, so players could switch between them if they were struggling with any part, and go back whenever they feel like.

I do recognize I probably took it a notch too far in some places, though- some challenges were way too hardcore for some people to get into. I went back to the game at a later time and released a new version that made a number of difficulty adjustments, making certain parts easier and more forgiving, but some other parts would have been harder to change. It is a bit difficult to explain, but some things were pretty tightly designed.

For example, with the first Power Orb mission, I designed every step of every challenge with a lot of thought, making sure players learn certain tricks as they proceed, which they will need later in the update. I couldn't do a lot to change things there, because then players could be missing out on important things, and feel lost later. Not only that, but the overworld was already fully designed. I wouldn't have a lot of wiggle room to add or rearrange stuff, without messing with other parts of the map intended for other things. And that's not to mention the big mess with players' save files it would make if I did rearrange stuff, with players potentially loading their save file in a whole different spot! Changing the overworld could mess with the races too, which have the player running around various areas which should stay the same.

So all in all, I was dealt something of a tricky hand. Some things were a tad too hard, but they were not very malleable to change, as they were more foundational with how the update was built. These kinds of things should really have rather been worked out while I was actively developing the game, and if I had the hindsight, I probably would have made it more accessible back then. So, since I couldn't do too much to change certain parts of the update, I left them as they were- a very tough challenge for whoever wishes to take on it! On the other hand though, I did change things where I could, like increasing the cupcake spawn rate in the Foxy Fighters minigame, and adding checkpoints to the overworld battles against the rainbows, which people responded to very positively!

In spite of some criticisms regarding the difficulty of the update, it was still received very well, and people enjoyed what it brought to the table! People seemed to really get invested in all the new stories the update brings, as well as the various different characters that take center stage. They were also consistently thrown aback by the various surprises of the update, which was very fun to see!

The game was very well liked when it was released in 2018, but in a way, I think the update helped solidify FNaF World Simulator's identity. There was a big expansion to the world of the game, and a lot of things added to it, which helped make it more unique and distinct from FNaF World. Rainbear, for instance, became a pretty popular character, who is almost synonymous with the game for some people!

There we were, with high spirits all over, having this massive update just then being released... but, there was now one lingering question which had to be addressed.

...What happens next?

The conclusion of FNaF World Simulator

I always knew since the beginning of working on the update that after it was done, that would be a wrap for the game.

There were a lot of reasons for that. Well, for starters, the game was already supposed to be finished all the way back in 2018 when I released the game, as I never intended to make any new content afterwards. I would later realize that there was a lot of potential left in this game that I could explore though, and that I still hadn't given the most I had to offer, so the hankering to work on the game resurfaced.

Then, I made the update 1.1.0, and my ambitions were thoroughly fulfilled. Everything I wanted to do with this game, I had now done so. There wasn't any more story I wanted to tell, or any more mechanics I wanted to explore, it was all there. The game was complete. That hankering I had to reach the fullest potential of the game was resolved. And I was 100% certain of it this time.

Besides, considering how large the update was, and how much I aimed to go above and beyond with it, if I even tried doing another update, it would certainly pale in comparison. It only makes sense to go out with a bang. Still though, there are people who wish for new updates to be made for the game, and I find it very endearing to see that there are people who care for the game that much, and want to keep experiencing more of it.

I never intended to keep on adding to this game forever, though. Another reason this update was always going to be the last one, and I suppose the most important reason, is that I simply didn't want to keep working on this game.

It is important to emphasize that by that point, it had already been 6 years since FNaF World Simulator was created. I dedicated a lot of my life to this game, and I really started to feel that after a while working on this update. Don't get me wrong, I was super pumped to be working on it, and I was as committed as ever, but at the same time, I was thinking a lot about the other things I would like to do after I finished working on the game. I wanted to dive into other creative fields, like for instance hone in on my drawing skills, and try to improve at it.

I loved working on FNaF World Simulator, and I loved the experience of working on games. In no way could I ever discredit that! Instead, my sentiment after releasing the update 1.1.0 was this: I put a lot of work into this project, I pushed myself a lot with it, and I am proud of how this game came out. So, I felt satisfied with what I was able to achieve with game development, and I didn't feel like I had anything more I needed to do with it. I had a lot of fun with this field, but now, there were many other vast creative fields out there yet to be explored, and I was eager to go on new adventures and see where they take me!

Some of you may have noticed that I have been quiet on Game Jolt for a long time, and I will likely continue to be after this post, too. If you were wondering what I've been up to in my absence, I can tell you that I have been doing well, and I have indeed been pursuing those other fields like I mentioned, and I have had a lot of fun in doing so, too!

But even though I've moved on to other things, that doesn't mean I stopped caring about this game. FNaF World Simulator will always hold a dear place with me, and I keep up with the community for the game to see what's been going on!

Speaking of, it's really awesome to see FNaF World itself continue to have a such a big community in the present day. It's clear people still have a lot of love for this game! Various creators are making fan projects of their own, too, and it's a very awesome thing to see this field still going strong! To any of you working on a FNaF World project, I wish you the best of luck!

Back to FNaF World Simulator, I am always amazed by how much love this game continues to receive to this day, with people still playing it, posting about it, making videos of it, and such. Coming across fan works, too, always puts the biggest smile on my face. Be it drawings, models, stories, you name it- knowing that someone cared enough about this game to make their own fan creation about it, it's the greatest feeling in the world. It is an honor that this game has resonated with people, and it meant something to them!

Looking at the game's page as of writing this, the game now has 2.3 million views, 1.2 million downloads, 15 thousand followers, 12 thousand comments, and 3 thousand likes. Honestly, it would be very difficult for me to put into words just appreciative I am for how far this game has gotten, how much support it has received, and how passionate people are about it. It still feels surreal sometimes!

And now, 10 years have passed since this game was first created. It's pretty crazy to think about just how long ago that was. I have seen people who described this game as being part of their childhood, which feels crazy to me, and really puts in perspective how much time has gone by!

So much stuff has happened during this time! A lot has changed in my life during the course of the decade, and this game was there through all of it. Since I worked on different parts of the game across several years, when I look at this game, it even brings back to mind various different points of my life. As a matter of fact, I generally worked on each area and wrote the game's dialogue in the order the player accesses them (with some revisions of course, but most of it was left the same), and since the game started in 2016 and it was finished in 2021, I think you can feel my writing abilities and style evolve as the game goes on! I poured a lot of myself into this project, and in a funny way, you can even see my own growth reflected in the game as it progresses.

I've talked a lot about what this journey has meant to me, and if you have any stories or memories of your own associated with this game that you'd like to share, I would love to read it!

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of FNaF World Simulator, I wanted to try my hand at making a drawing about this game. I would like to extend a big thank you to BennetJL, who created very faithful models which I used to figure out the poses of the characters before drawing them myself! (The image is rendered in a lower quality on Game Jolt, but you can zoom in and press Download to see it in the original resolution if you wish!)

These have been 10 incredible years, and I owe that to each and every single one of you for contributing to making this journey as meaningful and remarkable as it has been.

You are some very special people. Thank you for everything.