Well, here we are. It has been a week since FNAN 2 has released, and reception has been okay. Most criticism seems focused on confusion regarding mechanics but besides that, people seem to like it fine. Well, I’m not too sure myself. Like I said at the release, naturally my thoughts on the game has changed since the start of development two years ago. And I feel I should say what I thinking about how the game has turned out. This is going to be a very lengthy post and there WILL be spoilers, so get ready.

Now, if I were to make a sequel to FNAN, I still believe the idea used here was one of the best that could’ve been used. The creator of the animatronics getting revenge on Donald for getting him arrested by using his own animatronics with actual killer robots. But the execution of the idea is where things feel like they fall apart for me. For one thing, there’s simply too many stretches and stupidity in the story for me. For example, how the hell does Beta Nutty manage to break Thomas out of prison? Why do the arcade screens show static? Why does Thomas keep leaving these random items out in the open each night? These are things with no answers, they’re all just conveniences. Except for the second one, I just felt it looked cool. On top of this, I’m not entirely sure the search would’ve really been called off after a couple of weeks. How would they not know where Thomas, the prime suspect, lived? And in regards to the good ending, how did Donald know where to direct the police? I doubt they’d have phone trackers at that point in time. And the removal of stealth minigames only made things worse. Thomas said “I have eyes watching” but…no you fucking dont, those are only on the ground floor guarding the room nobody’s gonna get to. Had the stealth minigames stayed, it would’ve worked much better, but…well, it don’t. But I think the biggest problem with the story is the lack of it. What makes FNAF games so popular is its lore. Its deep mystery that can never be fully uncovered, that can be theorised over a lot. There’s none of that here. There’s no “mysterious past of Thomas Ford” to find. All that’s given are items he owned that can’t have a bigger meaning. Every story element in the game is presented at face value. So that overall makes the story of FNAN 2 pretty meh, since there’s not much to it, and what is there is stupid.

The presentation is also something I have issues with. I don’t mean to offend Gamerguy, he did a good job, but there are glaring issues with his map that I don’t fully like. Mainly the texturing, as it can be quite low-res and badly mapped, like the pipes or table. And it can take forever to render too, because it takes so long to prepare scene data. And why is most of the verts in the fan?! Thats just not acceptable to any capacity! It also kinda irks me how the cameras don’t have shadows. It isn’t much of a big issue, and is an issue I caused and not him, but it’s just something that annoys me looking at it. I don’t know if you noticed but every characters’ eye glow except for Withered Bonnie also has an irritatingly noticeable white outline around it thats a fault of poor texturing. Its bugged me forever and I hate it. And additionally, the exact same static and dusty screen effect is used ALL THE TIME. Its in the intro, the night transitions, the minigames, the cameras, the extras OH MY GOD USE ANOTHER ONE ALREADY. It feels lazy and I’m not too happy about that. And the poses for the characters can feel really static. Like I get it, they’re robots, but they can feel like the exact same pose copy pasted multiple times. I mean how many times have you seen Beta Harry Hat with a tilted head? Yeah. Oh and what is Beta Plushet doing in a box? That’s dumb. The jumpscare animations were also pretty poor. Nutty’s doesn’t look like he’s grabbing you and Crunch flails around way too much. Besides all that though I think the presentation is fine. Honestly in terms of UI I think it’s the best part of the game! I really like the menu with the characters that get added after each night, the opening settings screen, the sliding open select night options, and I’m pretty proud of how the Custom Night AIs are selected, even if it was a boring nightmare to code. I also think Withered Bonnie’s jumpscare is kinda cool. I liked it.

The gameplay, though? Eugh. Its REALLY boring. I still like the idea of luring animatronics away with the flashlight, but…well, here’s a secret from me to you: I have not actually completed FNAN 2 myself. I have only gotten up to Night 3 before I went on to do anything else. The best strategy is to make them all camp in one room, flick off the switch when you have to, and shut Withered Bonnie’s vents. It can get really boring really fast, especially since 4 of the 5 characters behave the exact same, and I’ve never had enough care in the idea to want to actually play it. And the doors turned out to be absolutely worthless! Why would you ever want to use the doors? Did you know Crunch can make doors open and close at random after breaking one down? No? Thats because nobody ever uses them! It does practically nothing and feels more like a time waster. The only two times I can think its of worth is against Beta Plushet, since he can’t break them down, and with the last resort door to try and get to 6 AM. Its worthless. And object collecting is a boring way to the good ending too. Just find one item once per night and huzzah you win, big whoop. If I could do whatever I wanted with the game, I would’ve kept the stealth minigames, since I still feel they work much better not only gameplay wise, but plotwise. But, well, the game had to come out, so consequences needed to be took, and as a result it left me unsatisfied. The gameplay isn’t scary and it isn’t fun, so I don’t think it was very good for a FNAF fangame. And on a minor note I think the audio is pretty weak too. Despite not wanting to copy audio from other media we still ended up using audio from Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Undertale just like last time and Marp sneaked audio from The Dawn is Your Enemy into the ambience. I don’t think it’s a big deal now but some others might not think its too great. Plus I get complaints the game over sound is too loud and honestly I cringe listening to the glass breaking sound in the intro, I really wish I could’ve found a better one. Oh and the door sound too, I wish it was more impactful, it feels way too quiet for what’s going on. And Marp, I love ya man but honestly sometimes it feels like you’re getting bored to death doing Thomas’ lines. Oh well, at least that menu music is still pretty bopping.

At the very least though, I do like the extras and replayability a lot. There’s two endings, Custom Night with 9 beatable presets, an Endless Mode with leaderboards, 360 degree views of all 5 characters, every jumpscare(and I mean EVERY jumpscare, take fucking notes fangame devs), making ofs for 4 of the characters, cheats and challenges including a Survival Mode, 12 different easter eggs to find and a plethora of dev images to view. I do like what I managed to pack into the game after beating it.

But even then, overall I just think Five Nights at Nutty’s 2 is…okay. Just, okay. Its better than the first game by a truckload, at least this game doesn’t bug out on god damn jumpscares, but…well, despite a lot of goodies and cool UIs, the gameplay is boring, the presentation is subpar, the story is stupid and the audio is kinda bland. I don’t think highly of this game anymore, and honestly think Nut: The FNAN RPG is a better game. That being said though, I don’t regret working on FNAN 2. I’ve met some fantastic people who have come to join friend groups I’m in and become friends with the people there! Even if it was just for that, I don’t regret working on the game.

However, this is the end for FNAN. There won’t be a FNAN 3, and I won’t be remaking FNAN 1. I’m open to using the FNAN characters in future fangames as a cameo or a UCN-type scenario, and I’m definitely up for making a sequel to Nut: The FNAN RPG since people liked it and I liked it and I liked making it it was good. But besides that, it ends here. It was stupid thinking making a sequel to Nutty’s was a good idea in the first place, just considering the namesake. It made it doomed from the start, and I think it showed in the replies to Reddit posts about the game. Hence I don’t want to further the series anymore. I want to move onto other things, better things, things EASIER TO TAKE SERIOUSLY, and things I can enjoy not just making, but playing too.

Thank you all for reading, and I will see you in whatever we do next.

please dont sue me jon