So, I'm moving out and dead broke. crowdmade.com/collections/gomotion, baby! Look, I drew a grungy, ever-withering noodle girl long sleeve to fund my illicit plans of living again. Go grab this hot, fresh pasta while it's... relatively warm. Link in the description, you fiber optic funk nut! So, if there's one thing I've come to notice a lack of in FNaF fangames? It's the harrowing absence of strong restaurant theming. I mean, t
hese places are… mascot-driven, right? Like, yeah, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza gets a pass for looking like just another shamelessly cheap, dingy, characterless pizza joint, Jumping in on the eatertainment gold rush without more than a pathetic lick of thought put into its interior design, 'Cause Freddy's IS a shamelessly cheap, dingy, characterless pizza joint, Jumping in on the eatertainment gold rush without more than a pathetic lick of thought put into its int
erior design, but listen! We can't all stoop to Fazbear Entertainment's level, eh-heh, There's an art to going bankrupt! I want to see less of THIS, and more of THIS, I'm talking more than just giving each animatronic character a consistent look 'n feel I mean a real, themed restaurant, something that isn't a generic looking kid-oriented pizza parlor- Look at what early Chuck E. Cheese was capable of before it made it big; Just look at how… r
etro and rustic and southern everything is, and confederate, Ah-haw yeah, rootin tootin patriotism, I feel my rights dripping away as we speak! I'm not saying you gotta go full Rainforest Café, 'cause yeah, that'd go hard as nuts, But some people just hate potential, but something a little more than THIS, right? And A Bite at Freddy's, released on October 6th, 2023 by Garrett ‘GarrettTube’ McKay, Is exactly what seems like I wanna scratch that itch, a
n authentic, Freddy Fazbear themed grill. This shit oozes theme, like a decaying bag of meat! And from GarrettTube himself? Listen, that dude knows his way around what it takes to craft a faithful, tongue-in-cheek FNaF-esque experience, Down to that real specific visual trademark a lot of Scott Cawthon’s modeling work features, in FNaF’s Clickteam lineup, So for somebody THAT dedicated- I'm aggressively pitting A Bite at Freddy’s against those for this entire
review, Get ready Garrett, this better be good. So hey, without further tom-ado, LETTUCE make like a slider 'n make some real cheese in the BEEF! Hamburger. So, past a bog standard warning screen and we're met wit- uh, RUDE! We're met with an introductory cutscene, ugh, possessing Freddy after our assumed death I guess- Functionally, not too dissimilar in presentation to FNaF 2’s opening, now with a whole lot more living! We're accompanied by
Dingus 'n Dongus overlooking the reanimated menagerie; “Man 1” and “Man 2”, conversing from afar in a lit-up dining area, 'Bout how these crazy animatronics, “ain't moved THIS good since yesteryear!” Did you know? Any company bearing the name “Fazbear” develops an allergy to human rights? So anyway, with this definitely guilty as shit, blade-slinging dick in our peripheral to boot, BOOM, title card! And awww, a little endo jaw biting at the cursor, t
hat's cute! Not much else to gawk at as far as your options go here, but DAMN if that ain't a crisp menu screen render, Painting us those warm, casual restaurant vibes, And the endoskeleton gore giving us a real good idea of how seriously the game and I are gonna take each other- And with that, past another sleek as hell shot, we're greeted by robotic sentience from the get go! A walkin', talkin', walkie-talkie, donning a cowboy hat?? Hello, foreshado
wing! This here's the manager, whom, alluded by a fade-out line of dialogue's, this bitch, right here, Cooking in the kitchen in the restaurant with us! Not before laying down the law in a quick preparative brief, though! Explaining away the basics of our duties as a night shift mechanic, Repairing and testing the Freddy fast-food delivery machine. Which is where we're thrown right into the face of the butt of, Staring down the mouth
of the delivery circuit, with a prompt to turn right leading us into the- yep I wanna talk about the presentation first, Can we talk about the presentation first, 'cause holy grease dripping burger flipping shit is the attention to detail served fresh! The torn, stained wallpaper, the litter of party room decor, The classic staple diner meal iconography dotting that brick-built interior, those fancy-ass lights? And matched with the more industrial elements, t
oo, Freddy’s Grill is visually inviting in all the ways you'd want it to be. Even throwing in some environmental storytelling! Nothing says “business was slow until the haunting of our animatronic mascots” like a public hazard! But DANG if the office ain't the standout here, the stacked, grainy CRTs, the electrical tape, the jungle of wires, the window divider, Everything's totally packed but nothing feels overbearing. And hey, even the "Y" dropped fr
om "Party Time"'s a cool detail, yeah, it's the prophecy that predicted my hours! The UI’s clean across the board, transitions and animations are smooth, The sound design's sharp, click-y and responsive when it needs to be?! And between that, and the family-friendly theming contrasting the occasional, inter-weaved, mechanical junk, Hell, even playing with color contrast; tying the colder blue, metallic vibes to the cozier oranges with some electric, menacing r
eds to compliment... Yeah, first impressions are TIGHT! There's sort of a stylized, retro, chunky tech thing going on too, on top of that garbage, And especially in the animatronic show stage up front- Oh yeah I forgot, haunted robots, allergies, right? The Talkshow animatronics, yeah, THESE are a prefix I can get behind, Not only totally remixing the roles each classic character's usually suggested to have, In a more faithfully cart
oonish, stylized, mascot character set; But setting them up to be part of a thematically sound late night talk show-esque gig, Appropriately supplementing the slight adult-oriented vibe of the eatery you'd usually find in a grill, Of which I'd definitely wager was inspired by the Chuck E. Cheese Studio C Alpha stage, Featuring a bolted-down, waist-up Chuck E. and accompanying windowed city skyline to boot, Or potentially McDonald’s more prominent, act
ual late night show-inspired Mac Tonight animatronic performances, or hell, maybe a mix of the two? It's not like those two haven't already inspired fangames of their own before! Either way, as a result of that, ripping themselves outta the spotlight, you get one of my favorite niche FNaF fan animatronic design elements, gangrene. These flame-grilled, lightly seasoned ground beef bastards only exist from the bust up… haha! Short. For real, watching haunted ani
matronics drag their top halves around is such a weird visual, that I can't help but love? Taking on similar imagery to that of, like, a sawed-off zombie crawling around, or something? It's comically grotesque in a way that actually works pretty damn well in the context of a game that opens with the extinction of all life on Earth, But simultaneously works as the most grounded and realistic way that haunted animatronics would move IRL- make up your goddamn mind!
But hey, don't let their pathetic height fool you, they'll rock your shit if you ain't careful, With the trade-off being that the one task you're actually paid to deal with being pretty damn simple: Just pay attention to the order status and confirm the manager's orders, convey their way from the kitchen to each respective destination! Oh hey, it's the implication of a meal, that's the Fazbear Entertainment I know! Hahaha, not for you though, YOU get a hot,
fresh plate of something at the end of each round, which feels like a consolation prize for not dying more than anything… Yeah, that's the Fazbear Entertainment I kn- The whole mechanic's essentially replacing the typical 6-hour countdown, With three meals a course, and four courses per… game, what? Yeah, COURSES, you're only spending the one night at the establishment, Functionally making no difference than just splitting them up into four nights, b
ut hey, it's refreshing in concept! Each graduating course throws a new enemy into the mix, Kicking off with Bonnie ‘n Chica who share pathfinding destination real estate, Freddy to follow in Course 2, approaching from above through a vent network, And Foxy that achieves nothing more than successfully pissing me off, making up the quartet by Course 3! And while there's nothing inherently special about the majority of these guys’ AI, Each requ
ire you to fend ‘em off in a unique way, all involving novel uses of your environment, Like facing off against Talkshow Chica in a pre-programmed quick-draw scenario, for example, By picking up a pop gun ‘n blasting that bird bitch between the lookers, to the actual visual annoyance OF Chica; That shit fits the vibe of the game perfectly, And in a fun way that prioritizes personality and game feel over just another door mechanic or whatever? And, real
quick tangent, A Bite at Freddy's really does hone in on the personality here, The Talkshow designs being something I really can't get over, 'cause unlike the majority of fangames, A Bite features cute, cartoonishly proportioned mascot characters that LOOK like animatronic adaptations of cartoon mascot characters; I feel like that's something people tend to forget with fan designs, That the purpose of an animatronic mascot is to replicate the look of A MASCOT
, And the implied smirks, the accessories, those looney-toons lookin-ass proportions, they feel ripped straight outta 90’s pizzatainment. Like, I could totally imagine Chica as the star of a fictionalized wild west Sat-AM cartoon, or Foxy hosting his own, one-man show; Teaching kids about funky science shit- And, if we're gonna make the comparison, The more goofy, personality-driven Talkshows aren't… uncanny in the same way the OG FNaF gang can be und
er the right lighting, And they're definitely not inherently SCARY, but I've always found a certain pleasure in crazy, cartoonish vibes pushed to the point of intimidation. But hey, what the piss would I know about that? The way these mechanical boys and girls approach you also bear a striking similarity to the first FNaF game on paper; The bunny ‘n bird confronting you closer to your workstation, Freddy making a stealthier approach, Foxy’s behavior encouragin
g you to check on him ‘til a certain point… It's all reflective of the first Freddy’s game while injecting its own, freshly baked identity grease into the mystery meat mix and I LOVE IT! The power system at play here, too, I'd argue, is a similar case, Helping to tie each offshoot mechanic together and work as a natural evolution of the power gauge; Here, replaced with a power load, that runs the risk of overload, Still giving you a taste of that swee
t, sweet, power management gameplay you've come to know and tolerate, but in a way that I honestly prefer in this context; Hit with a more forgiving penalty in place, inhibiting you from using any more power-driven devices for a limited time if ya chew off more juice than the building can handle. And that encourages strategy, stupid! Grinding the conveyor to a halt, that'll rub some power, Switching OFF the power to fend off Bonnie if ya catch him staring you
up, that’ll chew up a chunk o’ juice... somehow? Oh sorry, my bad, I forgot this game takes inspiration from the series that saps power from closing doors, silly f*ckin' me! Even viewing the CAMERAS ramps up usage if you fail to prevent Foxy from pulling his bullshit by not refreshing the cameras in time? Who also gives you a dirty look when you best him at his own game, But somehow I feel less bad about it when Foxy’s only purpose is to short the building's m
ain power supply; Forcing you to rely on a BACKUP RESERVE THE REST OF THE COURSE- I mean, to be fair, it's a pretty organic, grass-fed feature, Giving you the option of paying the fox extra attention, with less time to dedicate to checking on the others, OR ignoring him for less of a headcount in the active threats department if you can afford the cost of some extra challenging power preservation. And, stacked up against managing cameras and immediate
threats, as far as the main gameplay loop goes? It's a very carefully crafted juggling act that I'm not afraid to admit I've come back to again, and again, and again- And every time you win a standoff against Chica you win a complimentary suggestion of a soda, And hell if they do anything but indirectly act as an indicator on the menu
for the amount of time I've spent… g-genuinely enjoying pissin’ around on this thing, Not even just coming back for t
he mechanics, but the engaging vibes and presentation of a creaky, sleazy, burger joint, and friends! Like, for example, one of said friends, Talkshow Freddy, compared to the rest of the gang, is just a slightly more out of the way obstacle, funneling you into the cameras to activate a vent fan to turn him around, And sometimes even- RUDE! Yeah, if you're unlucky enough, you can decapitate the bear bastard yourself making him harder to see in the feed,
Producing a sound akin to a feeble horse whinny but GOD is it a cool goddamn detail! And speaking of details, yeah, in a series full of foreshadowing, this is sick. But, um, hey, feel free to defenestrate literally everything I just said if you don't bother to check the delivery windows, Yeah, in true Fazbear fashion, the machinery works exactly as intended, until ghosts. These dudes have the capacity to climb through the food delivery openings ‘n ride that
shit to Sunday, Forcing you to expend your precious power reserve by up to around 30% to pump the brakes on the belt to get rid of anything unsightly, IF you can't shut the doors on ‘em in time. And the way these mechanics interact is pretty great, too. I especially love the subtle visual and audio cues that SOMETHING'S coming down the conveyor! The faint pinprick pupils blending in with the dust particles, and the audible clatter coming from the ope
ning, Muffled by the quiet ambiance so it's never IMMEDIATELY obvious when you're potentially boned. Even giving each enemy a unique arrival speed relative to their difficulty, Foxy obviously being the fastest reflecting his position as FNaF’s resident bastard. And yet, with all of this to digest these mechanics do the one thing most employees in these games are physically incapable of after about a week, they work! 'Cause if there's one thing I'm alw
ays a tad cautious of in fangames, it's an overabundance of defenses, in some cases? The presence of way too many actually watering down the strategy of a fangame to a going-through-the-motions, clockwork-like rodeo, but, here? I never ran into that problem. Each mechanic finely tuned to the point where I was making all the little micro-decisions I needed to in a constant effort to reduce death, Which is how it should BE, ya saucy little stain! The ga
meplay loop's just plain FUN, it's forgiving when it needs to be and I think that's really all you need to keep most people coming back, especially the latter. Dying in most FNaF games, both fan made and official, can be the most annoying bullshit in the world, And when slipping up once in this stupidly high-stakes sub-genre can reset your progress back to zero, I totally get it. But, a robot slips past your watch on cams? You can halt the conveyor at the cost
of your power. Freddy sticks his neck past the fan's reach? Yeah, you're gonna get him but at the cost of visibility, overload the power? Oh, the game’ll knock you down, but you can recover. There's a level of accessibility here that gives you that extra wiggle room to mess up but doesn't hinder your accomplishments as a skilled player. And I don't wanna let that kind of game design go unappreciated, Hell, in addition to the billion other pr
os I've listed for this thing, It's one of the many reasons I've come back to it so often. And there's even some stuff between courses to mess with, too: A few interconnected mini-games, to be exact, And by "a few" I mean two, and by "two" I mean one plus- RUDE! There we go. But hey, it's a good ONE mini-game, Involving the removal and re-installation of screws in the food delivery system while avoiding everybody's favorite punch-dru
nk Bonnie, It honestly makes me wish there were more immersive moments in the game like this, it's genuinely a neat little break in the action! But sod any of that! What's a loosely-based FNaF 1 parody without a comical spin on a yellow bear that does nothing before killing you; Yeah, that's right, a yellow bear that does EVERYTHING before killing you, bitch! The aptly named, Final Course, throws the canonically-long-dormant-aptly-named "Threadbear" into the m
ix, Coined after an incident wherein a KID chomped off a chunk off FREDBEAR’S frontal lobe, And I believe in equity, so I'll have to balance it out by calling this mystery bastard child Brainless McDipshit, Yeah, I don't make the rules? Threadbear’s a jack of all trades, appearing basically at random! He'll almost always spawn in with a distinct, if faint, audio cue, Meaning if he's suddenly taking Freddy’s place in the vent, you'll hear him,
If he's over in the backroom, ya better refresh the cameras lest he infest your shit. See him in any of the rooms with a conveyor opening, ah shit- Yeah, he'll stick himself in the delivery windows halting any and all food AND animatronic activity, Which if you're anything like me you'll just use as an opportunity to recover your power and totally cheese, haha, the AI, don't even worry about it man. He's unironically one of the coolest characters in
the game though, With undoubtedly some of the coolest renders to his name, and a genuinely great visual pun-incorporated design, Using the crater in his flesh as a lookout spot; it is CRAFTILY creepy. MAN, you get a good look at the detail here, too, that decaying foam rubber, barely taped together, those crazy looking textures, I-WOULD YOU STOP ALREADY?? And WITH that, hey, that's the original five haunted gang back together, And, upon beat
ing the night, the first chunk of the game outta the way, With a cutscene of Freddy escaping the establishment and into a thematically appropriate credits roll, And, in lieu of the game's theming, fit with a cheesy-ass “where are they now” section, In character for the animatronics and just... Man, this game's stupid charm! Listen, A Bite at Freddy's polish is squeaky clean, the tone's so charming and full of personality, the difficulty curve and bal
ancing's pretty much near perfection, The renders are so pretty, even extending into unique loading screens for different sections, And maybe the hardest a series of game over screens have ever gone, both fit with tips and flavor text to boot; The manager's even given some real good lines- Who I should also mention is in the kitchen watching all this happen literally the entire time by the way without doing a lick about it, but how can I complain? I g
ot good soon for criminal negligence, but this shit peng. Practically everything's clickable in the office and on some cams, the game's littered with cool visuals and easter eggs, With a specific one I caught that looked a little like this that I'm NOT bringing up 'cause I'm mad I wasn't recording at the time- And all of this… for a so-called “bite-sized experience." So anyway, I don’t even consider all that the meat of the game, Look, it's a genuinel
y well thought out, beefy-ass custom night! If the Lord works in mysterious ways, I wouldn't be surprised if A Bite at Freddy’s was the second coming of Christ! But before we get to that, it's time for dessert! And we are served a hefty smattering of extras baked fresh from the menu, starting off with the e-extras: Yeah, you got your rooms, your posters, your developments, It's always great seeing development efforts recorded and game assets preserve
d in high quality, Stuff like this? It's like a mini art book section, it's always appreciated; But the real minceMEAT and POTATOES… fries’… here- Yeah, sorry, I'm going to hamburger hell. Per. Those crisp, ultra detailed character displays are the standout here, and DANG, The years-old grease stains, the peeling fabric, The fact that Threadbear especially is so visibly beat up, The curling foam, the gunk spots matted into his fur, t
he rougher texture on his nose? So much of each character's withering is so intentional, Applied in ALL the places you'd expect on an actual decaying animatronic, Something you do not see often in a lot of these things. What are we, ordering weight painting AND substance painter to the same table here? What’re ya doing, you're SCARING them! But, eye CANDY a-SIDE, I think I oughta LETTUCE get into the REAL EXTRA CON-dimen-TENT this thing's got to offer
- Yeah I'm not above making the same cheap pun twice in the same video, c'mon, ketchup. This game's custom night, the true main course to the *snort* APPETIZER that is the main campaign- That feels like a series of tutorial levels by comparison- Want proof? Here are my recordings of courses 1-4, [Loud crashing noises]
And here's the goddamn rest of the goddamn shit-dicking rest of the- While you're granted complete control over each c
haracter's AI here, what am I, a sheep? We're here for the custom night challenges, and oh my god? Yeah, this ain't just a roll of the dice on which monster of the week's gonna skillet your ass the hardest, There's an ACTUAL FUN GIMMICK to go along with each, remixing ‘n re-imagining the game into six distinct levels, Each with their own fundamental spin on the base formula. Even the manager dresses up and reacts accordingly to the conditions you're t
hrown into here, it's a fun detail. And there's a decent variety here, from deliveries arriving scattered around the vicinity, forcing you to hunt ‘em down in Basket Hunt, To Cold Kitchen, where the restaurant's formed its own internal weather cycle, the freezing temperature causing the cameras to… Yeah… get really cold and then stop working, I don’t see how those two points are correlated though- Out of Service, when the company katana meets BRAKE CABLE. [Cra
sh] Yeah, let one of the crazy bitches slip into the conveyor NOW and you're cooked, no stopping the belt. That one's actually a genuinely neat challenge that actually really keeps you on your toes- My favorite's gotta be Haunting Roulette though, Deduct ‘n promptly shock the interactive tool of the week, wriggling with a soul of the damned before it jumpscares you, Making this the only fangame in existence that gives you the privilege of pausing mid-
game, AND dying to eight polygons! But if that just ain't the epitome of A Bite at Freddy’s, I mean, they up it to, like, 12, so- But what FNaF clone’d be complete without a 5/20 MODE, son? Yeah, here are custom night challenges 1-6, [Crashing noises]
Here are my GODDAMN 5/20 ATTEMPTS- Okay, listen, if Foxy ever fries your shit before Meal One, just restart, make sure to cheese the power with Threadbear and, yeah, eventually you'll get through
it, But BOY, did it sizzle my tenderloin! Every screw up felt like my own doing, Each death giving me a tad bit more to learn about the intricacies of the behavior of these dudes, Something crazy important in a game like this! Like, I wasn't dying to total bullshit or nothing, it was always my own comeuppance that got me- A detail not exclusive to 5/20, but one that DEFINITELY mattered the most when tensions got tight. And after an
untimely string of deaths… FINALLY… I was able to beat that damn course… Over the course of several days, but we don’t talk about that! O-Oh! Full Course, that is, Each challenge automatically sets a specific AI level for each character, Full Course telling you it sets each robot to 20, It doesn't, you gotta crank ‘em all individually to play the true 5/20 which is indescribably more difficult, And possibly akin to the pain of a thousand suns concentr
ating into each and every one of my pores… But if you're anything like me, the combination of a Fredbear finger puppet and a really sexy 10 gigabyte file offset my frustrations instantly! Yeah, I'd call the battle damage to my hard drive worth it! And yeah, a Fredbear finger puppet, Each extra course rewarding you with a random lil’ trinket to commend your persistent ass, Going ditto for the game's main landmark challenges, actually- Both fun
ky-ass, stylistically appropriate approaches to replacing the typical FNaF-esque completion stars, Including a paper roll the game tosses ya for doin’ a whole lotta nothing on 0/20 mode. Y’know, for the poopy you went and took while you waited for it to pass? Stupid? Yeah, recognizing my accomplishments via, eheh, MENU STARS? No thanks, I'm validated by the fact that A Bite at Freddy’s accommodates for my animalistic need to take a shit! ....a-and wit
h that- A Bite at Freddy’s is an almost flawless fangame in my eyes, Standing as one of the most structurally sound and well-polished pieces of fan content I've seen tossed out there in a while, And I think everybody's stupid eyeless freak knows why! The game's tailored to the user experience first ‘n foremost, Reeling the concern over the typical FNaF trope of grounding the player in a super spooky, lore-rich atmosphere WAY back- Focusing o
n the game mechanics, building an engaging presentation and story around that… That and it's also not blood bound by the limitations of Clickteam- Yeah, a FNaF fangame in Godot, did the rapture arrive early? Defending yourself and a conveyor belt against a slew of animatronics is fun, And without the game constantly trying to keep things consistently spooky scary tense all the same, I feel like there's more room to focus on everything that ain't that-
Appealing character designs, gameplay optimization, hell, just a simple-ass story- This thing knows where to prioritize! Now, I ain't saying these elements bog DOWN what’d otherwise be a more robust ‘n mechanically-engaging fangame, But a lot of the time I see what could be more robust and mechanically-engaging gameplay dragged by a whole lot of waiting and pacing issues, When, haha, you fresh-not-frozen little fry! This is a FNaF fangame, y
ou're doing the same shit for about 90% of the run time, ergo? The more you engage, the less frightening these things inherently become, So A Bite at Freddy’s leans INTO that replayability, and says, Hey- here's a variety of intuitive mechanics in a fun environment, With a tongue-in-cheek remix of the classic elements ya know ‘n love... Rolled into a bite-sized experience. [Muffled] Y’know, somehow I'm having trouble fitting 10 different leve
ls into my mouth!
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