Fundamentally Broken, and I Don't Mean the Bugs ► A Game Design Case Study of FNaF: Security Breach

Thank you all so much for watching! You all have given me so much support and it's just been amazing. So many fantastic and insightful comments as well. 😄 There are a couple things I want to say here. First, I've been trying my hardest to either Heart or respond to every comment. And while I've been successful in keeping up most of the time (so far), there are way too many to reliably keep up with. So even if I don't react to your comment, just know that I greatly appreciate it! I seriously love reading and interacting with them all. It's been a blast. One unknown that the comments and I have been trying to figure out is the extent of Scott's involvement, especially when it comes to the universally disliked and incomprehensibly strange existence of Burntrap. I made an assumption/prediction in the video that it was led by Steel Wool, and I think that's a fair assessment given it's their game and the story and even the lore is rather incomplete or non-existent, with an obvious reliance on using Afton as a crutch. However, there seems to be official word from Steel Wool (link below, but I'll quote the entire thing here) that specifically says, "[The writing] is really collaborative but Scott has final say in everything and he creates the overall story concept. When we have unique ideas we're comfortable pitching them to him and he really is super receptive which really allows us to have a creative voice." This is unfortunately not looking great on Scott now, and even if this was Steel Wool's idea, I'm sure Scott would've had to approve it. However, it is worth noting that we don't have details about any of the developmental and approval processes at any point during development. Steel Wool has also strongly suggested, in both Dawko and GameJolt's interviews, that they were the ones who came up with the ideas of Freddy being a good guy caring for a child (essentially the basic concept of the game). Therefore, we just don't know the extent of these story concepts and who created what, but there are a couple things we know for sure. First, Steel Wool created a game virtually without a story, motivations, or character development, or in some cases characters at all, and that's important to keep in mind no matter what story concept was supposed to be there. The writing itself was most likely done by Steel Wool as well, since the writing is inconsistent with what Scott has written in the past for his games. Second, they're both at least partially responsible, which is a bit shocking to me that Scott may be the one who brought Afton back, despite me thinking it'd only make sense if Steel Wool were the ones who brought Afton back as a continuation of the one-off digital essence Glitchtrap story that tied their VR Help Wanted game together. Thank you all for sharing information and I apologize for anything that may not have been the whole truth -- that wasn't my intent. www.reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/comments/mrhv… Edit: I appreciate a lot of the great feedback I've been receiving as well! My title worked but my thumbnail was crap, so I fixed it. And some of the extended clip segments may have been too long. I don't often include so many clips, but Security Breach is quite a unique case where the game is essentially defined by its online legacy and brokenness. I'll try to limit the clips in the future, but if a future video (e.g., the DLC) contains another longer segment of clips, I'll consider adding my own post-commentary on top of any clips that don't have any

Not gonna lie, Markiplier desperately calling for Freddy while running for his life and then IMMEDIATELY getting ignored and left behind so he desperately screamed louder that Freddy's a bitch just SENT me.

What always confused me about security breach was that no one on the dev team asked the question of, “Why didn’t greg just stay in Freddy’s room the entire night”

Pizzeria Simulator was the perfect ending for the series. It was logical, a son FINALLY able to destroy his murderous father's remains and legacy, innocent victims finally laid to rest, and a father able to let his daughter know that he loves her & show approval at how, even in death, she strove to rescue other innocent souls, all while damning the soul of a killer who exploited his dream to create something beautiful & magical for children to Hell. I still cry at the true ending's final dialogue. It should have ended there.

The over-excessive inclusions of the sound that frequently happens when the player has been spotted is the equivalent to the whipcrack sound effect from a single episode of Johnny Test

The main issue with the plot is very nicely summed up just with that one Markiplier clip "Why are you hiding from me?" Mark: Honestly I have no idea

Honestly, you know you’ve failed to make a horrorgame when the scariest character is mapbot

I think the saddest part is you can tell they weren't trying to be lazy or just produce a quick cash-grab. The developers genuinely love Fnaf and tried to make something beautiful, but the problem is that it was too much, too fast with too little time and experience.

I'm really just concerned for Steel Wool and their addiction to "hold E" prompts. Hope they can recover from it and join the rest of gaming society in tapping E once. Thoughts and prayers 🙏

Watching Mark grow more and more frustrated and pissed at the game was sad. He genuinely loves this franchise and SB was such a letdown.

I've seen this suggestion thrown around by other people, but I wholeheartedly agree with it: instead of being mind-controlled, Vanny should have been an obsessed fan of William Afton and the original murders and wanted to continue his work at the next generation of Fazbear venues all of her own will. The idolisation of serial killers and their legacies is an unfortunate and disturbing thing that happens in real life, and would be an interesting way to bring Afton back without actually "bringing him back".

To be perfectly honest, it took me a very long time to realize that Gregory wasn't the bad guy of this story. He shows up outside of opening hours, with no identity and an unconvincing reason as to why, emotionally manipulates a trusting animatronic, and slowly mangles every single one of Freddy's friends while lying to him for his own needs. Meanwhile, we never see any of the supposed enemies being threats, they're just doing their jobs and being bullied by a kid who wasn't even supposed to be here. All the jumpscares are non bloody and non violent, just you being captured, or maybe even just found.

As an outsider looking in, I originally thought that the whole point was there was no real threat; the only reason why Gregory felt threatened was because he was a child, and he was interpreting the situation like a child would. Vanessa just wanted to take him back to his parents, but from Gregory’s perspective, she was a stranger that his parents always warned him not to talk to; the robots wanted to help him, but from Gregory’s perspective, they were trying to hunt him down. …Honestly, this would’ve make a lot more sense than what happened in the actual plot.

A child sending a letter addressed to Foxy and the post office knowing it was for Scott has to be the best part of this video omg 😭

I think the simplest way to fix Gregory’s baseless motive for running away from Vanessa would be to play into the fact that he is literally just a kid. If I were a 9 year old and I figured out a way to spend the whole night at my favorite fun park, of course I’d want to get away from the security guard. And then that neatly falls into terror when you finally get caught by Vanessa and she becomes Vanny so now Gregory legitimately wants to get out but can’t because the doors locked. Just making Gregory act like a kid would help a lot for his character.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded that the regular designs of the animatronics aren’t scary if they had focused on their destroyed versions more. Chica’s distorted noises, Roxy leaping at noise, and Monty crawling towards you are all pretty scary but they’re only around for a little bit before getting an ending. Monty isn’t even active after destroying him, he just lays there in the Music Man area.

57:53 I like how Freddy’s footsteps getting louder as you try to find where he’s coming from after you call him builds more fear and tension than most of the actual game.

I feel like shattered monty could've been the only animatronic that can follow you into vents, meaning you'd gain access to new areas but also lose a safe spot.

honestly the most painful thing to come out of all of this is Markiplier's gameplay. You can see at points how frustrated he is by everything going on and desperately trying to compliment it but you can see he just hates everything about it. when I see him play the original games or playing shit like the Stickmen series, you can see how much fun he's having. But here, he just isn't happy.

Security Breach could've been so much better if it wasn't just Freddy who was your bud, but if you went around trying to 'cure' the others of the mind control, and each animatronic had a special gimmick that would help with progression and you'd have to summon a specific one to progress. Vanny should've been the only hostile entity and treated like a serial killer. It'd be a direct mirror to the earlier FNAF entries, except you get to play as the kid running from Afton. You could've also had Vanessa seemingly do everything right too. Giving Gregory items, hints on what to do next, but have her get distracted and lose track of Gregory because has to do keep an eye on the security monitors and do all the management stuff WE had to do in the earlier games.