Video Games / To stage
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a video game. A survival-horror video game. An Indie Game, developed from 2014 by Scott Cawthon.
Don’t imagine – not even for a second – that I am able to play this game. Of course, I’m scared. I hated Slender and I don’t know how not to blink: how can you have fun playing SCP-Containment Breach? Every time you blink, the monster comes closer. Pure hell. The only thing that had me amused was the video of a guy playing Slender in the dark – and his roommate coming from behind – the guy fell out of his chair, terrified. I laughed, but a hit like that for me and you lost me forever.
But how this game is not yet on a stage is a mystery that I can’t explain to myself.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a story put into a game.
Ok, the movie, hey wait, please – when something works, we make a film – I really like films – but seriously, there are so many better things to do for subjects like this.
Moving on becomes… a bit…. obvious too. We have all the technology to amplify games, what are we going to do with an unique recipe? Every entertainment has its flagship media.
In short, all this is happening in a pizzeria. It was going well, all the teenagers were happy – and so was I.
In this pizzeria, to amuse the customer, there are “animatronics” – basically weird animal-robots, and not really robots.
These robots have two goals: first, to make the night watchman wear an exo-skeleton that will allow him to ward off any possible attacks. And secondly, it’s the rules. And they don’t mess with the rules. Who is the night watchman ? You, of course.
Obviously, if you put this on, you will die, because it doesn’t fit you.
You’re out of the rules – too bad for you.
And then there is a dark, very dark story about child killer monster – these are the children who bring animatronics to life at night. And unfortunately for you, they think you’re that killer. They want revenge.
– Thus, if you had found something to make yourself smaller and enter the exo-skeleton without dying, you would still be dead.
This is the basis of the series – you are stuck in your surveillance office – there are two doors, one on the left, one on the right. You can watch the animatronics cameras to find out where they are … you can relock the doors – but you can’t do everything at the same time.
It’s all about stress management.
Batteries … because obviously, if the batteries of your various weak means of survival were infinite, it wouldn’t be funny.
And so you’re going to die, at least a few times.
The series has grown, the story has grown with each episode. You have to manage the sound – impossible to play without a soundtrack, it allows you to know “where they are” – which is a bastard, because the sound clearly increases your stress level, and the different elements to be played appear more and more. But the story itself not only holds up pretty well, but it amplifies and unfolds – to the point of making it a very good story in the genre: do you like to be afraid?
Given the visuals we find, how is it that a company like La Licorne (The Man who Laughs, The threads of the Heart), which is so excellent at making quite atrocious and splendid puppets and masks, hasn’t taken hold of the subject? Because it does not exist yet.
It will have to exist.
it’s …. obvious.
On the left, Five Nights… on the right a mask by La Licorne
I don’t want to think about further developments – I’m supposed to sleep properly tonight, it’s going to be a very busy week. But I have them in the back of my head, all the possible developments that are so horrible and so effective, in Virtual Reality that we could invent by combining the two worlds.
You don’t know the funny part? Who am I going to work with for part of the week? With those of La Licorne. No, I won’t talk about that – they would be able to do sketches for me – Seriously, the real artists, I’ll see them a little later. But I promise you that I just made the report. And I already know what they’re going to say when I tell them about Five Nights.
There is a VR version of this game – and we make only a movie from it? No- no non no. Please, don’t. But never – make it into a show that will be on tour, bring the players, play them, in real life, with artists and the VR as a duo, the game and the show – that will blow your hair off.
Not me, I’m scared – it’s no – and I have enough trouble doing my hair as it is.
Featured Image : from Five Nights at Freddy’s –
ALTAIR - Concepts 