10 Video Games That Use Your Imagination Against You

2. Five Nights At Freddy's

Enemy Zero Shower Scene
Scott Cawthon

In Five Nights At Freddy's, you play as Mike Schmidt; a night guard who works at the restaurant, Freddy FazBear's Pizza. Within a few seconds, you learn that the building is populated by animal-themed animatronics who are doing their best to kill you. By checking the security cameras, you need to monitor where the animatronics are in order to survive.

Even as an indie-game, the objective of Five Nights at Freddy's couldn't be simpler. Each night, you need to survive six hours (8-and-a-half-minutes in game time) before the animatronics reach your room. If they get too close, you need to close one of the doors.

Because you have limited power, you need to gauge when to close the door and for how long. But you don't know when you are safe, unless you check the cameras... which uses power.

You see the problem?

The best way to conserve power is to avoid looking at the cameras... which means you won't know if the animatronics are approaching.

If you don't check, you don't know if they are in their rooms or two seconds away from killing you. The scariest thing about this game isn't the animatronics... it's overthinking.

Contributor

James Egan has been with Whatculture for five years and prominently works on Horror, Film, and Video Games. He's written over 80 books including 1000 Facts about Horror Movies Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about The Greatest Films Ever Made Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Video Games Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts About James Bond 1000 Facts About TV Shows