Spotlight on the FNAF Phenomenon

I decided to do this because it's reached such a high popularity, and has been crossed over with FiM multiple times. Heavy spoilers are included in this post.

Introduction
Five Nights at Freddy's or FNAF is a series of jumpscare games created by Scott Cawthon. In the first three instalments you play as night guards responsible for watching over entertainment establishments based on Chuck E. Cheese's, complete with a cast of animatronics. It has even been said, particularly by Game Theory's MatPat, that the concept for the game is based on a series of murders that occurred at a Chuck E. Cheese, and perpetrated by a former-employee. Most of MatPat's theories seem pretty solid and compelling, although now people have released videos debunking his theory on FNAF 4 left and right.

Basics
The basic premise of the games is that you have to prevent a bunch of animatronics from eating you, basically. In the first three games you have a system of cameras plus at least one other gimmick with which to do this. The first game gives you doors. The second game gives you a music box (for the Puppet/Marionette) and a spare Freddy head, which you can put on to fool everyone but Foxy and the Puppet. FNAF 3 gives you a recording of Balloon Boy's voice, which you can use to lure Springtrap (the only real animatronic in that game) away from you. In FNAF 4 you're a little boy, and the cameras are gone. You actually have to run to check the doors and closet, and all you have is a flashlight with much better batteries and ordinary wooden doors.

Popularity
Whether you play the game yourself or watch Lets Play videos by the likes of Markiplier and jacksepticeye (my favourite because of his stage presence), there's something about the games that just suck you in, and then because there's a mystery and a story there, it sucks you in further. I mean, Phone Guy mentions the Bite of '87 in the first few minutes of Night 1 in the first game. I can understand why it's such a popular series, simply based on the desire to find out what happened, nevermind those who want to brag that they made it through Night 6 or 20/20/20/20/20 mode, or whatever. Scott is really good at setting up the atmosphere and suspense, making the games enjoyable for those who like jumpscare games.

Releases and Chronology
Despite the development and release order, the games are not in chronological order at all: the first game takes place sometime in the 1990s, based on the salary at the end of Night 5. FNAF 2 takes place around the time of the infamous Bite of '87 . In addition, some of the mini-games take place in the early '80s at the first Fredbear's Family Pizza, while others take place later. FNAF 3 takes place 20-30 years after the first murder at Fredbear's, but reveals the circumstances of the other murders through the mini-games, which took place during FNAF 2. And of course, since you play as a crying child in FNAF 4 who gets bitten by Fredbear (not his fault, though), that one takes place in '83. I originally thought it was the Bite of '87, but if, in the mini-games, you go up to the TV after returning to your house from Fredbear's it will say 'Freddy and Friends, 1983.'

The Guessing Game Behind the Game
There is also Mass Speculation over the identities of Phone Guy and the Purple Man, both of whom have histories dating back to the original Fredbear restaurant, and both of whom have worked as night guards. Phone Guy is the one who leaves the player recordings so you can learn what to do to hold off all of the animatronics. Purple Man / Purple Guy, on the other hand, is the sociopath who killed at least six children. Some people believe Phone Guy and the Purple Man are the same person, while others believe that Purple Man is your direct predecessor, who got switched to the day shift before you start in the first game. Whoever he is, he's a sociopath who, judging from his smile much of the time he's depicted, enjoyed what he did.

The Story
If you're not into jumpscares, this is what you came for. I admit I was most curious about this, so this is what I have managed to piece together.

Around 1983-84 we have Fredbear's Family Pizza, a small, one-room establishment with only one or two hybrid animatronics -- they can function as normal animatronics, or rigged with spring-locks so entertainers can wear them. The problem is that they're engineered so poorly that moisture, such as from breath, sweet, or water, can cause them to unlock, and the animatronic parts would then forcefully inject into the wearer, killing them brutally. This happens with both golden-coloured suits, Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, killing two employees. First, however, the Purple Man kills his first victim, a child standing outside the establishment, as revealed in the Take Cake mini-game. Fredbear is shown wanting to stop this from happening, but is unable to do anything because that space exists outside of its map. The mini-game ends with a jumpscare by the Puppet, probably the first the player has had from him if you've been keeping up with winding the music box in FNAF 2. Because of both the murder and the employee deaths with the golden suits, Fredbear's is sold to Fazbear Entertainment, which opens a chain of larger, similar restaurants. The original golden suits, however, are decommissioned and hidden away in a hidden safe room, which is also off the animatronics' maps. Both the endoskeletons and the employees' bodies were removed from the golden suits.

At the location in FNAF 2, the animatronics have a free-roaming mode still, and they're just fine with children, but they act strange around adults sometimes. They're redesigned as 'toy' versions to be more child-friendly, also using some of the parts from some of the older versions. Toy Foxy has it the worst, with children taking him apart, and the staff putting him back together almost daily, until the staff stop caring and turn him into an assemble/disassemble attraction, dubbing him 'Mangle.' It's in this game that Phone Guy introduces the concept of the animatronics possessing facial recognition and a link to a criminal database (which would be good for staving off further child murders as long as they took place on the animatronics' map). My problem with this is that in the late '80s there's no way this kind of technology would have existed. If it did, Fazbear would have been able to make a fortune off of that alone. But back to the story: I believe it's after Night 4 when Phone Guy's message tells you that in incident involving one of the stolen golden suits has occurred, and a number of children have 'gone missing.' This is the second murder, and now Freddy's is under investigation and closed, however the player still has to fend off the animatronics, which are now more agitated than ever because of the murders -- the children mean everything to them. What happened is that the Purple Man used the Spring Bonnie suit to lure the children into the back room, off the map, and then he killed them. Many people then assumed that he stuffed their bodies into the animatronics, but the Give Gifts, Give Life game shows the Puppet putting the souls/bodies into the animatronics so they can have a chance at revenge. Too bad they can't tell the difference between Purple Man and another night guard. The Bite of '87 should also have taken place around here, if not at the previous location. The Purple Man is caught, but the bodies are never found. The place ends up closing.

Most of FNAF 4 takes place inside the child's house, as he tries to fend off the nightmare animatronics roaming through the halls. The mini-games between nights reveal how the older brother and his friends abuse and frightens the younger brother, who you play, until they lift him into Fredbear's mouth as he is singing on stage. It's no wonder Fredbear is one of the last bosses in this one, given how frightened the poor kid would be of him. Fortunately a flashlight and some ordinary wooden doors seem to be enough in this game. Still, the child is heavily implied to die sometime after the bite.

Now we finally get to the original FNAF. What you do not see as you play this game is the Puppet messing with the animatronics and their AI, but in FNAF 2 a short cutscene clearly shows the Puppet right in Freddy's face, and you can tell that the designs are of those 'original' versions. This also means that the Puppet was there the whole time, while you were most concerned about Foxy and Freddy, and maybe Golden Freddy / Fredbear, if you saw him. The recording on Night 4 is of Phone Guy's death at the hands of most of the animatronics. Again, he talks about the safe room in the back, and asks you to check inside the animatronics. This game is also the first mention of strange fluids and odors coming from the animatronics -- the first hint that these attacks are more than them seeing you as an endoskeleton without a costume, but then you may have already suspected that Phone Guy isn't telling the whole truth.

FNAF 3 takes place at a haunted house type place, Freddy's Fright, modelled after the old pizzerias and based off the unsolved murders. It has parts of the old locations all over the place, and a bunch of old, decommissioned animatronics. You play as an entertainer who has the part of the night guard, and while you've been working to to test the attraction in the week before it opens to the public. Springtrap (or Spring Bonnie) is introduced on Night 2, someone having recovered him from one of the boarded up safe rooms at the FNAF location. While he's the only one who can kill you, there are phantom animatronics you can hallucinate, which causes you to hyperventilate so you have to reset the ventilation system, giving Springtrap more time to sneak in and kill you. Phone Dude, who helped you on Night 1, also found some old training tapes from Fredbear's, which covers things like how to use the spring-lock suits safely (sort of), and the safe rooms. But when Phone Dude realizes that Springtrap isn't where he put him, he freaks out and... well, it's uncertain whether he made it out alive. The mini-games in thiw how the Purple Man went to a very dilapidated-looking FNAF location, the one where he murdered 6 children -- the roof is leaking, and there are rats all around the place. It's possible he went back after he got released from jail, which would explain the time difference: as Phone Guy says in FNAF 2, the original location was left to rot for quite some time. The Purple Man has been watching the electronics, and noticed that they're not acting right, so he has Shadow Freddy, possibly one of the dead employees from the original trials with the spring-lock suits, lure the animatronics from the stage into the space just in front of the safe room. Because this area is off their map, they cannot actually go there, and get an error. Purple Man rushes them and dismantles them, but he accidentally frees the children's souls, which spook him into backing right into the safe room. But they can also go in there now. The ghosts block the only exit, and the first victim forces Purple Man to flee into the only 'safety' available: the Spring Bonnie suit, which he has used safely so often, only now the room is full of puddles -- moisture. The locks unhinge, and the Purple Guy dies in the most agonizing way possible. Only he doesn't die fully, hanging in until Phone Dude or one of the other people fished him out and bright him to the Fright location. So from Night 2 on you have to deal with an animatronic possessed by an actual sociopath -- thus his ability to stick to the shadows, more like how Freddy did in the first game. Depending on whether you find and win the secret games, this game can end in a Good End or a Bad End. In the Good End, the children's souls are set to rest, and the animatronics are no longer possessed. To carry this theory even further, because of that FNAF might not even happen, assuming your actions just changed the flow of time. In the Bad End, the animatronics are still possessed, so everything still unfolds the same way. To top things off, Fazbear's Fright burns down, but Springtrap is shown hobbling away, so he could have survived even that -- it is implied that this could have been arson.

So there you have it: a very quick look at the story within the story, without spoiling too much that if you wanted to play you still can, and have to figure out how things work, if you didn't already figure them out from a Lets Play video. As talk of a movie intensifies, the speculation continues, and the jumpscares and story continue to fascinate people. I'm not much for the jumpscare aspect, which is why I have never played. But I do enjoy others' reactions, as I indicated before. I'm also one of those who wanted to find out what happened. There are still many questions, even though the series has (I think) been brought to a conclusion, but it was a morbidly fascinating story anyway.