The bulk of the gameplay in the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise revolves around a stationary security guard flipping through various camera feeds to track the child-possessed animatronic mascots and closing reinforced doors and vents whenever the aforementioned monstrosities get too close. Nowhere between the jumpscares and awkward phone calls from your sketchy boss do the games suggest that using the mouse cursor to click on random wall tiles or background drawings will unlock a variety of narratively relevant minigames. Sure, any Average Joe with access to a Wiki can find them now, but imagine trying to find them without a walkthrough tab open.
In “FNAF 3,” the “Happiest Day” minigame is only accessible to those who know to open HALL (CAM 03) and double-click on the drawing of the Puppet on the right-hand wall. In later games, like “FANF 4,” Cawthon lowers the bar to entry for these kinds of lore dumps by placing them as unavoidable interstitial content between levels. Other games in the series use a mixture of these two models, but the point remains the same — FNAF and pixelated minigames are functionally synonymous ideas. Without them in some capacity, would a FNAF film really be a FNAF film? No, and Blumhouse Productions makes the pixelated opening credits a diegetic sequence by loading the Pizzaria with arcade cabinets, guaranteeing it makes some sense to even the non-gaming audience. With such attention to detail, it’s no wonder why “FNAF” scared up an incredible opening weekend.
Also, in true Cawthon fashion, the scant pixels reveal vital plot information like, hey, maybe don’t trust the creepy golden bunny with an evil smile and a blood-crusted knife.
