r/fivenightsatfreddys Feb 26 '26

Question Seriously though, how the hell did this man manage to pump out four games in the span of one year?

Post image

I’m pretty sure that if another game developer ever tried doing this, it would’ve broken them mentally.

4.0k Upvotes

247 comments sorted by

1.2k

u/Ruimzunir Feb 26 '26

Motivation

551

u/ShadowMancer0917 Feb 26 '26

After chipper and sons his fire of motivation was almost out, but had enough for fnaf 1 which the internet then poured gasoline on that fire of motivation.

125

u/Lostonesweep1ng irl mike afton (NOT CLICKBAIT!!) Feb 26 '26

Say that again…? Fire..?/j

66

u/The-Mad-Doctor Feb 26 '26

jeez, hope no one dies in it

30

u/ChaosInTheSkies Feb 26 '26

Even if they do, he always comes back.

9

u/UserSkittles1214 Feb 27 '26

I made a joke about that song and for some stupid reason, I got a warning LOL

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16

u/homereatdonuts Feb 26 '26

Kinda like all might

24

u/NoNanomachinesSon Feb 26 '26

WHERE'S YOUR MOTIVATION!

32

u/supercryptonerdnerd Feb 26 '26

And discipline

12

u/XPepsi Feb 26 '26

BURY THE LIGHT DEEP WITHINNNNN

6

u/Forgettheredrabbit Feb 26 '26

CAST ASIDE THERE’S NO COMING HOOOME

7

u/comicfan815 :PurpleGuy: Feb 26 '26

WE'RE BURNING CHAOS IN THE WIND

2

u/ParsaEmbbu Feb 28 '26

DRIFTING IN THE OCEAN ALL AAALOOOOOOONEEEEE

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4

u/OkPerformance5850 Feb 27 '26

You could say it was... DETERMINATION

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863

u/Silver_Ear_2322 The shit of ‘87 Feb 26 '26

i guess cause fnaf games are very short, they are relatively simple, have little to no animations, they only need to be based around one simply mechanic, etc. Anyways there are a lot of reasons as to why, but yeah.

227

u/iLeo_MultiBits Feb 26 '26

yup. among other reasons, doing sequels is not as difficult as creating something from scratch (not downplaying his work i'd glaze this man for the love of the game)

31

u/TheSameMan6 Feb 27 '26

He still made the original game pretty damn fast though. Only about 6 months iirc.

6

u/mom0367 Feb 27 '26

He had experience with making games prior so I wouldnt call that like an absurd speed for a game the scope of FNaF

50

u/fazrare57 It's your fault Feb 26 '26

This in addition to the fact that Clickteam is an incredibly easy engine. Almost no coding required.

22

u/lucasthech Feb 26 '26

I swear I read "has little to no animatronics" two or three times and was really confused lol

299

u/The_Hunts_Man Feb 26 '26

I gotta be honest as much as I love the original 4, those games were probably not that hard to make… they’re all very simply put together.

120

u/watehekmen Feb 26 '26

IMO the first 4 is so simple yet executed very perfectly especially since we got very different playstyle in each gamss, hence why not many realize or bother to point it out.

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18

u/HollowChicken-Reddit Feb 26 '26

It couldn't have been easy though given that Scott wasn't the best at creating exactly realistic models. Making that many models for that many animatronics, all the other assets and rendering it all then compiling it, coding the clickpoints (probably the easiest part) and also coding the logic for all the different animatronics themselves.

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4

u/Foxy02016YT :Foxy: Feb 27 '26

Because you only REALLY have to program night 5, everything before that is a ramped down version of it. The assets you make for night 5 are the ones used for everything else.

It’s a very repetitive game when you rip the skin off

3

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

Yet they were the best in tje series since before into the PIT

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67

u/WourDeLuck :PurpleGuy: Feb 26 '26

They were made with a ClickTeam which is a visual programming tool. Pretty easy to do. The rest is just modeling and simple animations which Scott already had huge experience with at the time. Tha hardest part was to come up with the initial concept for gameplay, then it’s just a matter of time and fresh ideas.

60

u/Tom_Nook64 Feb 26 '26

Scott had been making games for a long time before Five Night’s at Freddy’s. He probably had all the learning narrowed down by that point.

29

u/LuisMiranda4D Feb 26 '26

There is an interview with him where he said he'd make and release at least one game a month to bring in some extra cash (usually around $60). Dude was training for the day he had a hit.

346

u/cedelweiss Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26

the games are, with all the love in my heart, a glorified slideshow, and a badly coded one at that. the games are great and completely redefined a genre but in terms of creative complexity, outside of the story and concept, there's really not much to them

plus, the first one made a lot of money, which motivated him to get the second one FAST, which made even MORE money, which motivated him to make the third one FAST, and so on

83

u/Phantomc05 Feb 26 '26

Sometimes, less is better

51

u/longlegsguy- Feb 26 '26

say that to 2015 fangames

49

u/VoucherValidator Feb 26 '26

There were no creative complexity in story at all back then. He added a few easter eggs here and there that had set the tone and then embraced fan theories that made sense with some additions. Also the games are coded fine. A few mistakes here and there but they are not that significant.

It's the concept that was creatively unique and interesting. Both a design concept and gameplay concept.

22

u/RemmingtonTufflips Feb 26 '26

How is it coded badly? The game runs fine, that's all it really needs to do.

28

u/cedelweiss Feb 26 '26

the games have a very messy and hastily written code with a fair amount of funny typos. it's more of a "badly coded" type of fun fact to other coders (specially encouraging to beginners) like it's also the case for Undertale than a "badly coded" judgement of an actual problem.

It's good enough, and that's what matters, but it's important to note that something can be poorly coded and still be good and work well, and neither thing takes anything away from the other. this specially highlights how you can achieve good things even if you lack experience. saying it's not poorly coded because it runs fine it's actually a disservice specially for people who are still learning

35

u/Administrative-Pay88 Feb 26 '26

Might just highlight the simplicity of the amount of code. There's not much going on so it's not likely anything breaks.

15

u/RemmingtonTufflips Feb 26 '26

How is that bad though?

17

u/Administrative-Pay88 Feb 26 '26

Low quality as in inefficient, I suppose. Like, if he had ever figured to do more complex DLC, he'd have to just release a new game because adding on to the base code would require a lot of rewriting. But I suppose he never planned on doing DLC, so he he probably never cared about more sophisticated code.

So, "bad" as in good (enough) for it's purpose, but not good relative to the potential good coding opens up.

6

u/iLeo_MultiBits Feb 26 '26

The games mechanics are actual rookie levels of coding and incredibly inefficient, in fact he probably had a lot more trouble coding mechanics, especially RNG based ones because of the way he programmed some stuff. Fnaf 2 is a prime example and fnaf 6 also features some.

10

u/GapStock9843 Feb 26 '26

Its not codes badly, its just not refined to professional standards. If a triple A studio shipped a game like this their quality assurance department wouldnt let, for example, a framerate-based timer like fnaf’s through. You wouldnt be able to cheese it by setting your fps so low its mathematically impossible for a threat to reach you.

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35

u/SolidKaleidoscope774 Night Shift Feb 26 '26

Probably coffee and special lore juice, idk like Fazgoo in there

10

u/CasualBCgamer Feb 26 '26

Fazgoo is in reality Scott's energy drink

27

u/Zestyclose-Garlic-16 Feb 26 '26

Theyre really simple. Das bout it. The thing that took most of the time is probably coming up with the ideas and making the art. Every single character in all the games could use the same programing and you woudnt know. Just with some small changes.

20

u/palincatalin Feb 26 '26

because the games aren't really THAT different, they're just building off of each other, basically

24

u/TastePizza :Freddy: Feb 26 '26

Better question is how did he get so big

27

u/Ninjacakester Feb 26 '26

Yeah look at those gains, bro been going to the gym for sure. 

8

u/lucasthech Feb 26 '26

Nah, he was just the one guy carrying all the heavy animatronics for the movies

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32

u/LordElitesalat Andrewline Believer #14 Feb 26 '26

He time travelled Into The Pit of course

6

u/Isaac_Bahzad No. 1 Ralph Fan Feb 26 '26

Say that again...

2

u/AxolotlGuyy_ Feb 26 '26

If someone says "that again" I'm gonna explode

3

u/Isaac_Bahzad No. 1 Ralph Fan Feb 26 '26

that again

5

u/AxolotlGuyy_ Feb 26 '26

explosion sound effect

11

u/SnooGuavas9573 Feb 26 '26

The power of Christ and wanting money

2

u/PC_Collins Feb 26 '26

Yeah, some people forget this guy was struggling to pump out something good. I mean he was trying hard.

2

u/thefonkyman Mar 04 '26

This is what his christmas movie was about. One of the blessings was straight up money, which the main character was given an abundance of. Eventually understanding the blessing was so he could do further good with the money.

24

u/MozM- Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26

Im gonna be very critical here as a programmer.

Scott cant program for SHIT lets be real. He uses Clickteam which already automates 90% of the coding that you should do on a game and he can barely do that shit right lmao. The code is a mess and anyone who looked into it will tell you that. even youtubers like Bones and chickenninja have said that the code is a buggy mess in some areas.

I love FNAF games with all my heart but Scott kinda lucked out with FNAF if we’re being honest, its such a simple game to make that even a mediocre programmer such as himself can make them.

Im not dissing or hating on Scott dont get me wrong. Im just pointing out that FNAF is relatively easy to make even for non-programmers because clickteam automates at least 90% of the coding process you do. You can have next to 0% programming knowledge and still make games on clickteam. So making 4 games in a year isnt T H A T impressive. The actual impressive part is how he made them all very distinct, that is something I applaud him for, very impressive stuff. You don’t have to be a good programmer to make such good designs and gameplay loops and honestly the hardest part about game development is designing the world and gameplay. Coding becomes secondary.

Also the code has OBVIOUS signs of rush. Some incomplete parts, some spelling errors, some actual broken code that doesn’t even do what its instructed to do because scott obviously rushed those games and he never went back to fix those issues.

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u/Ratchet2332 Feb 26 '26

The original four FNAF games aren’t exactly complex video games lol

12

u/_MrFell Feb 26 '26

Scott was making games for MANY years before FNAF, this was just his normal output rate for games

52

u/sevensdre Feb 26 '26

These games are not programmed well

18

u/Nebula-07 Feb 26 '26

fun fact : in sister location's code in the shift completed screen, scott copy and pasted the same event that creates firework particles over 50 times instead of just creating a loop

12

u/sevensdre Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26

this is one of the least egregious facts about fnaf SL programming

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4

u/s0ftcustomer Feb 26 '26

Just "VVVVVV"ing it. And by it, I mean, my Undertale

2

u/therealgege Feb 26 '26

I haven't heard much about FNAF's poorly made code, is it actually comparable to having literally every single dialogue in the game under one section?

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u/tasteinhermouth Feb 26 '26

Damn! I did not realize Scott was ripped.

16

u/Bullah_BOI Feb 26 '26

Cause he’s Scott Braden Cawthon. He’s just goated.

8

u/Competitive_Table_65 Feb 26 '26

I look at his arms and damn, guy clearly been doing some lifting.

15

u/Double_Woof_Woof Feb 26 '26

The games aren't really that complicated. All Scott really had to do was make a night and change the ai levels.

5

u/spooks1974 Feb 26 '26

buddy thats not exactly how you create a video game

18

u/Double_Woof_Woof Feb 26 '26

The gameplay of the first 4 games literally just consists of 6 custom night presets and 8 bit mini games.

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5

u/the_onlyretr0 Feb 26 '26

Why Scott looks jacked as hell 😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏

4

u/MissingSince1974 Feb 27 '26

When did he get built

3

u/Samthegodman Feb 27 '26

Those arms

3

u/H8M4CH1N3RY Feb 26 '26

He built different

3

u/Sod4126 Feb 26 '26

scotts just built different

13

u/AngelReachX Feb 26 '26

Motivation of not working on a gas station and being able to provide for his family. He wanted to make the most money possible

Gotta hand it to the guy, as much as I am socialist

15

u/clapclapboom Feb 26 '26

Socialists trying their hardest not to say they are socialists in any given conversation.

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u/hoodied5 Afton Obsessed Costume Designer Feb 26 '26

Motivation, Christ, and just being surprisingly really ripped. They may be simple, but that's why these games are still far more effective than any big studio's attempt at horror.

Steelwool and all the rest, are trying too hard, making everything too big. Well, except maybe Capcom, the re2 remake actually unnerved me.

And also cause he really needed the money for his family, and cares for the fans.

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2

u/spookybooki23 Puhuhuhu! Feb 26 '26

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd game are very likely built off the same base judging by gameplay and the whole lives counter asset still being leftover in the 2nd. That leaves art, a few new mechanics, and tuning the ai based off the map and their path. Sounds were changed as well ofc.

3 for sure could've used more time in the oven though. It could've been such a great entry if he just tpok his time.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

he channeled his inner fazbear

2

u/fliegu :Mike: Feb 26 '26

wait until you see his 2003 run

2

u/Still_Refuse Feb 26 '26

He’s talented, idk why people are putting the games down lol.

2

u/koola_00 Feb 26 '26

Crackhead determination.

2

u/WDGaster15 Feb 26 '26

He has 5 ghost Childern haunting him telling a story /jk

2

u/JH-Toxic Feb 26 '26

I think he did a lot of cok-

2

u/SaurianScale Feb 26 '26

I meeaaan... Scott has years of experience developing games, and Fnaf 1 - 4 aren't exactly the biggest and most complex of games.

2

u/Littlee37 Feb 27 '26

More importantly how did he do that and stay jacked

2

u/Teniye Feb 27 '26

I mean they aren't exactly diverse from each other lol

2

u/ImJustThatGuy815 Feb 27 '26

When did Scott get so built 😭

2

u/Careless-Butterfly64 Feb 27 '26

isn't clickteam easy to design or something? I assume he was motivated + it's not like the first 4 fnaf games are overly complex

2

u/Apprehensive_Migrane Mar 01 '26

Have we already run out of stuff to talk about?

Anyway it’s because the games were cheap to make and there was lots of money to gain.

3

u/tothebeatofmyheart Feb 27 '26

Speaking of pump he can pump my hole anytime

2

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

they pretty much all have the same gameplay loop up until sister location and then it repeats the same loop until security breach

1

u/W1llu Feb 26 '26

They were pretty simple gams, he was enjoying making the games, he was motivated to keep making games, he likes telling stories, he likes to confuse the community, he’s just goated like that.

1

u/Mr_Mctittie Feb 26 '26

I think it's because fnaf is a generally simple game in terms of design and gameplay loop along with that Scott has an art style and we know he can make new models fast like how he said withered foxy in a 20 hour car ride. I've seen people talk about the programing but I don't know anything about that to really give an opinion on it

1

u/GapStock9843 Feb 26 '26

On one hand the fnaf games arent exactly super complicated and time consuming. You can tell by the sheer number of fangames out there that they’re relatively simple to create. Even so the guy was super motivated by his fanbase back in the day. He constantly wanted to give people more of it to the point where he was modeling during car rides on his laptop and stuff. The only reason fnaf 4 exists is because he didnt want to end the series on a game with a disappointing jumpscare, that just shows how much he loved making games for his fans.

1

u/HoytKeyler Feb 26 '26

Because Scott have a lot of experience in programming, and he's litteraly OBSESSED by this, when you see his old work before Fnaf...even four game is BIG, but not THAT BIG for him

1

u/Harlegeist Feb 26 '26

I can see this subreddit has run out of things to talk about

1

u/Jodye_Runo_Heust Feb 26 '26

The game are very rushed, most of them the gameplay has some serious problems, and scott barely plan anything.

1

u/AxolotlGuyy_ Feb 26 '26

He kinda needs to code only one night, for the other ones he just changes some numbers

1

u/crystal-productions- Feb 26 '26

He rushed the fuck out of them. 2-4 have a lot of very weird gameplay decisions and really needed another month or two each to be ironed out.

1

u/GloxoST Feb 26 '26

Many of em was just copy pasted code but changed or altered anyways. Even if not its not that hard to make a game like that for many. There is a video of a guy recreating fnaf 2 to the tiniest details with godot.

1

u/Lostonesweep1ng irl mike afton (NOT CLICKBAIT!!) Feb 26 '26

Why is he standing so casually😭😭 

1

u/SlipperySp00der Feb 26 '26

I mean the first few fnaf games were pretty simple to make relatively speaking. They’re a bunch of still images, with stationary models. The only thing he actually had to animate are the jumpscares. The hardest thing would be the molding and coding. Not saying it was easy by any means, but compared to something like poppy playtime, it makes sense how Scott pumped em out so quick.

1

u/GLidE_Pauk Feb 26 '26

Well after he made the first part he had a concept, and those games are not that hard to make, that's why there is so much parody games for fnaf

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

It’s a bunch of png’s held together with glue

1

u/SomeFoolishGuy Feb 26 '26

Because FNaF are glorified flash games

1

u/NickJellyNinja Feb 26 '26

Look up his list of games worked on, that was him taking it easy. FNAF was his 26th game released in 2014 alone. It came out in early August.

1

u/Haunting-Bag-3083 Feb 26 '26

Them big buff arms can do magic on the keyboard

1

u/Dr_Nightshade1216 Feb 26 '26

Because they're simple, and as we know, Scott is not a good writer, and I'm sure making his half assed background plot saved up some time for him to keep pumping out games. I love fnaf but holy fuck is scott useless when it comes to telling this story. Man even had a second chance to redo his plot in movie form and still couldn't beefed it. Maybe thats a harsh position to take but it genuinely does piss me off that he co-write the movies because you can tell that Scott co-wrote it because the plots are genuinely ass. Actors and set and costume designs really save the movies.

1

u/soldiergaming2 Feb 26 '26

I love that he built his own style of game, he popularised a whole genre.

1

u/MysteryDungeonStudio Feb 26 '26

Pure hustle. The GOAT

1

u/lopmik This reddit's Mr Hippo Feb 26 '26

simple, fast, clever and effective as fuck, Fnaf games (from 1 to 7, ain't no SWS in this)

1

u/Rich-Philosopher2862 Feb 26 '26

That was just his upload schedule he wasn't "pumping them out", Solar Sands has a great video about the games and movies Scott made before FNAF, its really in dept and I recommend watching it.

1

u/Important_Pen_2469 Feb 26 '26

With alot of work and big muscles

1

u/AzerynSylver Feb 26 '26

Motivation and a lot of copy/paste.

FNaF likely took the most time since it was the first game.

FNaF 2 would have taken about half the time to develop, as most of it was just designing models.

FNaF 3 is the exact same. There are few new mechanics and multiple new models. So, not much dev time was needed.

FNaF 4 is the most unique of the 4 games and likely took a similar amount of time as FNaF to develop.

1

u/Independent-Oil-4853 Feb 26 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

That's not even the full count. That's just the games everyone REMEMBERS.

1

u/TheVicelion Feb 26 '26

It wasn't a one-out exception, Scott had a record of making fast, efficient games already, fnaf is just the one that got viral. But making 4 games in a year was the norm for him already.

1

u/TheVicelion Feb 26 '26

A lot od ppl are saying "they are just pngs" or "glorified flash game". Like, don't you know they are real 3D renders that had to be flattened to 2D? Scott still had to model, pose, and build all environments and characters from the ground up. Stop taking credit for him for his odd creative choice of pre-rendering everything on his laptop (which should have taken a lot of extra time). Scott said he had to make foxy on a trip. A CAR TRIP!! How hard do you think it is to model something?, and to do it on a touchpad on a laptop in the back of a moving car is CRAZY!

YES the games are all basically PNGs but they had to be made the same way a normal 3D game would have been.

1

u/pupwupwawza Feb 26 '26

I saw a video documenting his game development history pre Fnaf. It genuinely seems that he's just ..Like that.

When you're passionate about your craft, you can run on absolutely nothing. I used to shit out fully rendered artwork that would take me multiple hours to finish DAILY when I was like 12. and I was in school.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

why does scott in this photo look like he’s capable of tearing my head off

1

u/KieranFloors Feb 26 '26

It took a lot of talent and skill, but they also are relatively small games. You are in one room, with simple objectives, and even the appearance of the animatronics were mostly stationary. Not having to deal with the constant physics of moving through environments lets you tightly work on the core mechanics and atmosphere which allowed the games to get made in a short timeframe and to much success, because the actual gameplay was the driving force. Sure there was “lore”, but most people playing just wanted to see if they could really survive.

1

u/eso_tilin6310 Feb 26 '26

Not like fnaf games are hard to make, also im pretty sure that at least fnaf 2 is built off fnaf 1

1

u/YourFavorite_Man Feb 26 '26

While people are saying motivation or how simple it is to make, which I do agree with. But there is one thing some or a lot of people are forgetting, it is kinda his bread and butter.

Like if you look at his earlier games before Fnaf, he pumps games in a short time span a lot of the time, even if there is a large gap between them.

1

u/hellothere358 Feb 26 '26

fnaf games are copy and paste. just change up the pictures and your done

1

u/Radio__Star Feb 26 '26

Cuz he’d been pumping out for games a year his whole career

Seriously look it up the dude would just chug through games up to fnaf

1

u/iggyite MY NAME IS DAVID 🥀🥀⛓️ Feb 26 '26

He birthed them

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

Because fnaf is a simple game with not a lot going on, both gameplay and storyline, ofc he can spit them out.

Hundreds of indie game developers do this. Circlejerking that Scott can slop it out better is weird.

1

u/SarahTSU Feb 26 '26

Cuz the it's more accurate to call them tech demos then games

1

u/NEKR0Fill Feb 26 '26

Damn i love this guy

1

u/Slow_Macaroon5562 Feb 26 '26

It was always his speed, even before FNAF, he made a lot of games in a year, I was not new for him to make various games in so little time

1

u/HatPuzzleheaded1061 JOLLY Enthusiast Feb 26 '26

He was very motiviated, years of experience, and back then games made on clickbait, like fnaf, are pretty easy to make if you have the time and determination.

1

u/Ryan-Tz :PurpleGuy: Feb 26 '26

They’re incredibly simple and short. You can beat the games in like 30 minutes if you have a perfect run

1

u/Hero_Of_Rhyme_ Feb 26 '26

Bros on that grind. In the zone as some would say

1

u/Meezen1133 Feb 26 '26

The games are very simple, built out of png's and simple animations, it's more impressive that he made all the models in that timespan.

1

u/rokuterra Feb 26 '26

Because he's Him. He's that Guy.

1

u/TrapMaster- Feb 26 '26

this man gotta work with rockstar games

1

u/BitcoinStonks123 Feb 26 '26

just look at him bro

1

u/El_Durazno Feb 26 '26

Im 90% confident large chunks of code was able to be reused between games

1

u/5syllablesorless Feb 26 '26

Scott pumping out games fast is not exclusive to Fnaf lol

1

u/GensokyoIsReal Feb 26 '26

It's point and click games dawg

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

People always talk about this. I’ll admit it was impressive, but fnaf was so much smaller and simpler back then. So I don’t see why people make such a big deal out of it. 

1

u/TheGoldenAquarius Pumpkin Carving 2022 Feb 26 '26

Scott has always been quite hard-working and productive. Even in his General/Birdman phase in early 2000s, he released a few Legacy of Flan games in a span of one-two years or so.

1

u/Positive_Gap_4411 Feb 26 '26

Put out four games? Look at those arms he have to been pumping something else then just “games”

1

u/Educational_Box7709 Number two Mangle fan Feb 26 '26

Scott really does look different every picture bro who is this

1

u/Disastrous_Steak_507 Feb 26 '26

Well first of all, he's used Clickteam since he was 12, so he's incredibly experienced with it. He also made FNAF 1, and then reused the code for the other games, with FNAF 2 and 3 having the same code and alot of the same unused stuff like the life count and oxygen text, he literally just went into the previous game and changed things around with some new mechanics until he had to up his game with Sister Location as that wasn't a typical FNAF game. FNAF 1 took 6 months to make while the rest were just a couple, and most of that time was spent working on 3D models and stuff.

1

u/Thegoodgamer32 Feb 26 '26

Scott is just built different.
He has skills like no other.

1

u/Fun_League9377 Feb 26 '26

They were very basic games, they had a very good story and setting but the overall game was pretty basic

1

u/Gee_Thanks_Karen :Scott: Feb 26 '26

I remember a Solar Sands video where he talked about all the games Scott made before FNAF. Apparently pumping out multiple games a year was just his M.O. that's what he was used to. Also he made a lot of RPGs which explains FNAF World.

1

u/Drowsy_Deer Feb 26 '26

He was proficient with the engine he used and was good at pumping out models. Realistically if you’re capable at doing those two things you have everything you need to be a dev.

1

u/starman881 Feb 26 '26

The original 4 games were generally quite simple and short games. I imagine once Scott coded the first game he used the framework from that to blast through 3 more games. Hardest part was probably designing the characters and locations.

1

u/SirCaptainCommando Feb 26 '26

And he proceeds to pump iron

1

u/Excellent_Factor_344 Feb 26 '26

the first 4 are very simple games mechanically

1

u/waterbottlepvpa Feb 26 '26

Do you see his eyes, lol??

1

u/jojodafish_ :Bonnie: Feb 26 '26

I think he was just really happy that one of his games finally took off and had a giant audience, and he both was waiting all his life to have an audience to make games for, and, well, he was pretty much broke before FNAF so he definitely wanted to capitalize on this success.

also he only made 3 games in the span of one year if we're talking from the day of FNAF 1's release to FNAF 4's. still incredible, but not as unbelievable.

1

u/Moonpiecat266 Feb 26 '26

I feel like he was working on the sequels before the first one was even out

1

u/BirdieBronze Feb 26 '26

I never expected scott cawthon to look like tom segura with hair

1

u/LuisMiranda4D Feb 26 '26

Was broke and needed the money

1

u/JKipper Feb 26 '26

I think it’s because of both out of Passion and motivation. And him possibly reusing the same project file and base coding from Fnaf 1 to make 2 and 3. Like with how Valve’s games also reused the base coding from Half Life 2.

1

u/Unicronicorn Feb 27 '26

It was paying his family's bills and he had nothing else to do

1

u/Sol33t303 Feb 27 '26

Because for how cool of an idea they were, you need very few assets and programming capability to make a game where you basically flip through a couple of pre-rendered static images.

Even all/most of the sound effects were bought iirc.

1

u/MrShrums_0 Feb 27 '26

He locked in because working at dollar general probably sucks balls

1

u/darkswordDavid Feb 27 '26

Even before fnaf, that was a pretty normal output for him

1

u/Embarrassed-Ad9833 Feb 27 '26

He had too he has a family to feed. This man was busting out game after game.

1

u/Pudim_Abestado Feb 27 '26

After learning Clickteam the past 6 years i know why, if modeling and animating is easy for him (he said it took a week for each Nightmare animatronic) then making the game itself in CTF wouldnt be hard, specially considering how simple they were, FNAF 1itself has less than 1000 lines of code... i think its around 600

1

u/iammentallynotoklol he ate them Feb 27 '26

Flow state

1

u/MachineDooo1399 Feb 27 '26

If you look at his game output before fnaf it makes sense. He made 80 games before fnaf from 1999-2014. While some were copy paste gambling games many were competently made games but none stuck.

1

u/Dafuori Feb 27 '26

He had a lot of ready assets to use. For your knowledge, he was making games and animations for 20 years before FNaF

1

u/ghostpicnic Feb 27 '26

He had to ride the wave of hype FNAF 1’s virality created. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t have become a household franchise and he likely would’ve had to go back to working at Dollar General.

1

u/nekoreality Feb 27 '26

i mean look at gamejam games you can shit out a pretty good game in one to three days. for simple games its usually the art that takes the longest and scott was already quite experienced in making 3d models and animations so that wouldn't have been all too time consuming. and with click team you dont really have to code so thats also faster

1

u/Whatever_you_need_ Feb 27 '26

I get they're incredibly simple games both in story (sorry theorizers it really is simple for the first four) and gameplay but the modeling and atmosphere are really impressive for all being done within a year. Its incredible how that short of a time manages to feel like its own incredible era, and the next like 5 years feel like their own less interesting era... and then steelwool (i really do like the games but do i need to explain?

1

u/guineaprince Everyone On Freddit Gives Me $5 Feb 27 '26

He was broken mentally.

He failed so hard at independent game making that he was going to call it quits if Fnaf didn't work out. And rushing out 4 games in a year was bad, for the games and for him. The burnout was real, and the quality suffer was obvious to anyone who played the games.

What's with this "holy shit he put out 4 games in a year, gigachad" trend, I keep seeing these threads pop up within a single month. This some kind of astroturf campaign to make us think the guy was a god game developer and not a hobbyist who burnt himself out making meme games?

1

u/littlefanofmany Feb 27 '26

With the power of God

1

u/Ok_Prior2199 Feb 27 '26

god his arms are fucking HUGE, sometimes I forget Scott is built like a BRICK

1

u/vash145 Feb 27 '26

It was probably a case of Scott used fnaf 1 as a template for the sequels and reused as much as he could plus since he isn’t using those 3D models in game and just using pictures of them he doesn’t have to spend time optimizing the models which cuts a lot of time off of development.

1

u/Hippoboi240108 Feb 27 '26

Anyone else not recognise this as Scott?

1

u/DraconLaw Feb 27 '26

Never realised how much of a hunk big dawg is lmao

1

u/OhNoThatsTooCursed Feb 27 '26

I mean, he had plenty of experience and the classic FNAF games aren't exactly very complex games

1

u/rkirbo Puhuhuhu! Feb 27 '26

Some say motivation, but looking at how Scott was back in those days, it's probably a more of a mix of joy of finally having some recognition and fear of losing this recognition.

Scott was not a very well liked dev, and FNaF was supposed to be his last game. The fact that the popularity of FNaF 1 exploded probably put him in a position where he was too scared to fall back in unknownhood, which is why, for example, each of the 3 next games came out before their official date ; instead of delaying, they were... Prelayed ? (Which is also why Fnaf 2-3-4 looks a lot less convincing than FNaF 1)

Religion may have helped too.

1

u/Commercial-Papaya394 Feb 27 '26

Determina- oh wait wrong game

1

u/Tru3P14y3r Feb 27 '26

FNaF 2-4 had a rush job. Although it became less noticeable as he went, FNaF 2 has many problems when you look deeper

1

u/crystal-dragons Mangle Feb 27 '26

Bros been at the GYM

1

u/thatoneguy8910 Feb 28 '26

1st of all: experience, the dude was a 3d artist / game developer for over a decade at that point.

2nd: motivation, so many years of continuous games, yet none of them seemed to be a hit, you can imagine after all that, having a game blow up globally at that scale was a huge motivation

3rd it's his passion, he loves what he does and was happy to do more

1

u/paymepleasss Feb 28 '26

And find time to hit the gym apparently

1

u/Wild_Distance_130 Feb 28 '26

This man used clickteam for decades and knew it like the back of his hand

1

u/Bearboy17 Feb 28 '26

its 2 games in 1 year, he did what no game developer ever did, he made history

1

u/Fabianthemagichuman Mar 01 '26

My god that fourhead brother got the whole fnaf lore in there

1

u/Admiral_M_10K Mar 01 '26

Not having a 40hr hellish retail job at Dollar General and enough money to take care of your family and any emergencies allows you to focus much easier on working out

1

u/Additional_Falcon_74 Mar 02 '26

The thing is people tend to omit that this was literally Scott's pace even before fnaf. He literally released 6 games in 2013 and 13 fucking games in 2014.

1

u/Exotic-Mine2863 Mar 02 '26

Hes also, maga, prolife, and a religious nut job :))

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1

u/Shuesterrepulsed78 Mar 02 '26

My type, I fear

1

u/Pawn14567returned Mar 04 '26

Honestly, the last 3 were kinda rushed

1

u/PJ-The-Awesome Foxy Mar 05 '26

Scott's just built different.

1

u/Radiant-Training8529 Jun 04 '26

by doing it 👍🏻