Five Nights Away from Freddy’s - 8 Games by Scott Cawthon that Don’t Involve Fazbear’s Pizza
The Five Nights at Freddy’s series is inarguably popular at this point. Regardless of whether or not you love the atmosphere or think the games are dull, the creepy-looking bear and his - I guess we can call them friends? - are a YouTube phenomenon and have spread like wildfire across the internet ever since players were first introduced to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. But did you know that the developer, Scott Cawthon, has released several games long before the iconic animatronics graced our screens?
Well he did. More than 30 of them are available on the App Store right now, in fact - and I’ve gone and played 29 of them. Most were either slot machines or the same gem-breaking puzzle game over and over, but several of them are actually pretty decent. I can’t say for sure if you’ll enjoy them more than Five Nights at Freddy’s but he’s made at least eight games you might not have heard of that are worth playing (although many of them haven’t been updated in a year, most likely because of Freddy’s popularity). So why not give them a try?
Pimp My Dungeon
This semi-retro and semi-lane defense game is part of the reason why I decided to put this list together in the first place. It’s a bit on the simple side, but it’s actually really easy to get caught up in placing traps and upgrading your minions. It’s also very satisfying to watch those foolish heroes fall before the might of your impenetrable defen-wait, why did that one go upstairs?? They’re not supposed to go that way!
Pimp My Dungeon
FREE!
Forever Quester
Forever Quester is the other part of the reason for my playing through Scott Cawthon’s release catalog. It’s a simple “do nothing” style game where you occasionally pop in to see how your hero is doing before leaving him alone again to do stuff while you’re not around. What I like about it is that you can set preferences for training, so your hero will focus on raising specific skills - in addition to all that fighting and loot gathering that happens when you’re not looking, of course.
Forever Quester
FREE!
There Is No Pause Button!
Jeeze, this game. It’s an “impossible” style platformer where just about everything kills you and your character runs nonstop - until you fall into, run into, or get hit by something, of course. Much like similar titles it’s extremely difficult due to all the trial and error and reliance on reflexes. And just like the title says, you can’t pause. Ever. For any reason. All you can do is keep playing or shut the game off.
There Is No Pause Button!
FREE!
Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.
Believe it or not, this lumberjack beaver adventure is the game that ended up inspiring Five Nights at Freddy’s. Seriously. There was something about the robot beavers being creepy and, well, one thing lead to another. What’s weird is that Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. is actually a pretty decent game once you get past the somewhat awkward visuals and the obnoxious music. Call me crazy but I’ve already spent like an hour just wandering around watering trees so I can build an army of creepy robo-beavers. I wonder if that sentence is why I haven’t stopped playing, actually. Or maybe it was because of that time a man made out of lumber appeared while riding a giant starfish and transported me into another dimension. This is actually a really weird game.
Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.
FREE!
Rage Quit
Rage Quitis pretty much There Is No Pause Button but with a new color palette, a slide button, and slightly more forgiving obstacles. And I do mean slightly more forgiving. It’s still meant to be excruciatingly tough, and there’s still no pause button, but it’s not a bad “impossible” game.
FREE!
Fighter Mage Bard
This distilled RPG is incredibly simple, but it’s not a bad approach for a mobile game. You wander around fighting monsters and occasionally healing up at the Inn, then sometimes you can upgrade your character with new gear if you manage to save up enough gold from battles. After that it’s on to the next area that’s farther away from the relative safety of the Inn and full of tougher monsters to fight. Each of the three classes (Fighter, Mage, and Bard) corresponds to a different difficulty and performs differently in battle, giving you at least three reasons to check it out.
Fighter Mage Bard
FREE!
8-Bit RPG Creator
This is a cute idea, though it doesn’t quite replace actual game development tools. Still, there are quite a lot of options and variations for you to play around with. It could do with a bit of an introduction or tutorial but it’s not a bad way to play around with extremely basic RPG creation. Pity there doesn’t seem to be a way to share your RPGs with other players, though.
8-Bit RPG Creator Basic
FREE!
Use Holy Water!
Use Holy Water! is a side-scrolling shooting gallery with a decent number of power-ups to select before you start and both an arcade and survival mode. It also looks surprisingly good and can be as difficult to put down as any other tap-to-shoot arcade game you might find on the App Store
Use Holy Water!
FREE!