Five Nights at Freddys Into the Pit is a stealth adventure game based on one of the Fnaf novellas of the same name. The game enhances the story told in the novel making it more cohesive. In the game you play as Oswald, a young kid forced to spend his summer at a run down pizza joint called Jeff’s Pizza. One day Oswald’s dad was late picking him up from Jeff’s so Oswald decides to hide in a dusty ball pit in the back room. The ball pit teleports Oswald to the 1980s where Jeff’s Pizza turns into Freddy Fazbears Pizzeria. Arriving at the worst possible time Oswald witnesses the death of children, his new friends get kidnapped by the animatronic and so does his dad! Back in the present time the killer is now masquerading as Oswald’s dad, but only Oswald can see this. Now he must go into the pit each night to try and save his real dad without his fake dad finding out.
The gameplay consists of sneaking around trying to find items to solve puzzles while not getting caught by the roaming animatronics. Each animatronic is unique, the one you will be dealing with most is the golden bunny which will relentlessly stalk you and try to pull you out of your hiding spots. If Chica the Chicken sees you she will alert everyone to your location. Bonny the rabbit will not outright look for you but will be hidden under tables and grab at your ankle slowing you down. Freddy the bear will also not pursue you but will block your exits. After you have been spotted you need to run and hide in the various hidden spots throughout your house and the pizza place. If you cut it close enough you will have to complete a mini-game in order not to be noticed by the golden bunny. This is the scariest part of the game mainly due to the pixel art and animation of the bunny pacing around your hiding spot as you desperately try to complete the quick time event. The wheezing mechanical noise he makes sent shivers down my spine.
As expected you will spend 5 nights trying to find your dad. Each day consists of going to school, then at night trying to escape your house without the golden bunny noticing and running off to Jeff’s Pizza. Oswald will then jump into the ball pit and try to find clues as to the whereabouts of his dad. You will be switching between the past and present a lot to solve puzzles. You can find pieces around the different time periods that can be used to repair the arcade machines at Jeff’s so you can play spooky mini-games. You can also play them in the past but they require tokens that you have to pick up around Freddy’s. Each night a different animatronic shows up and I feel like the gold bunny gets more aggressive but I don’t know for sure.
This is an adventure game at heart, with lots of trial and error figuring out which item in your inventory can help with the current situation. You even have to manually put in phone numbers that you find. Each action makes a sound that attracts the villains toward you so be careful what you try to do. I did run across a couple of glitches that caused me to have to restart the game. So if you’re going into the security room don’t get over zealous and use the security cameras before talking to the child. There are also times when you can get cornered with no escape, this is pretty frustrating but I guess just a consequence of my bad pathfinding.
As someone who read the Into the Pit novel this game is a leap and bounds better. You don’t have to know anything about the novel to enjoy this although I feel as if some knowledge of Fnaf is required to fully understand what is going on. But if plot comprehension doesn’t matter to you and you just want a spooky adventure game then I highly recommend this title. The art and sound design are incredible and the way they melded the story to fit into a 5 night structure is impressive. After reading the novel I had no idea how they would make a full game out of a short story but I am blown away by how good this game is. There are also a bunch of references to not only the games but to the novels, shoutout to Oswalds two closets. I hope Mega Cat Studios or more creators make games based on the books. After this game I can see the untapped potential in these wacky novels.
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