Retrospective
August 2nd, 2026
Just like with the OG version of Hidden Gems, people are drawn to this project I made in 2015 that I didn't solidify too much of its development into my memory. If you're wondering why I did certain things in this project or changed things, most I can say is 'idk I was a kid making their first game'. Thankfully, as a kid I was obsessed with archiving info on my own games, and a lot of what's out there on various wikis and videos is a much better summary of the project than what I can provide since I was an active editor of my own game's wiki page. I'll still note all I can think of that's probably not been stated before:
From my own memory, around that time I was a big fan of Luigikid, and he had played the Five Nights at Wario's series. I remember being active in either his comment sections or his streams to some effect, and eventually I got ahold of him and TripleWario on Skype in mid 2015. I'd say I was nominally interested in FNAW at the time. I was fascinated at the series' incredible atmosphere for being just photoshopped images and wanted to take it to the next level by remaking the first game. For mid 2015 there were not a lot of people who knew how to use SFM or modeling software in the fandom yet, so when I offered that to TripleWario I think that was a draw to start development, alongside his own words in a video he made not too long ago saying he shared the sentiment to have a game with higher fidelity graphics.
The biggest issue for the time was that I had to use SFM for everything, which meant I was limited to things that had been ported to SFM. Thankfully the Smash Brawl models were on the Workshop, but I actually really wanted to use that ghastly Wario model edit seen in FNAW3. Sadly I had not become the SFM porting machine I was known for in 2016-2018, so the most I could do were small things like hiding Wario's pupil texture on his model.
All the designs had to be modified to suit this limitation. I don't remember how Mario got his eyeballs, but the oldest version of the game just used some TF2 gib eyes from the proplist. Luigi got that Puppet mask I believe just to have a standout and different design, I was a big fan of Luigi back then so of course he was gonna have some more standout features (and I think in some note or devlog I say he's gonna have a more important role? Super bias on my part.) Peach was scrapped because in my opinion at the time I didn't find Peach scary. That likely doubled from the lack of being able to edit the base models much so I believe I wasn't confident in attempting a scarier design regardless. Yoshi was the replacement for Peach in that aspect.
As far as I remember TripleWario coded the original release, I was simply just laying out ideas and throwing renders at him through Skype. The game was teased around late September 2015 and died around December. Once we gave up on the collab project was when I took my first shot at Clickteam outside of messing around with stuff. This started early January 2016, notably in two separate projects called 'Wario World' where I was just gonna make an actual Wario Land game (some files are included in the download), and then FNAWR. From what I believe, I usually try splitting minigames into their own project before recombining them with the main game, so given my version of FNAWR included arcade cabinets in the pizzeria level, it was probably just gonna be integrated into there if it lasted any longer.
My project had seemingly a different office and set of mechanics planned for each night. Night 1 was like the original version, Night 2 was a pizzeria, and who knows what I was gonna do for the rest. The biggest things I remember were obtaining the Smash for WiiU Wario model and the Dimensio model. Wario took me begging for someone to give a private port of the Wario model only their closest friends had, and another port wouldn't become public for a good year or two. Dimensio I had made on my own and somehow gotten it rigged and ported by somebody just for FNAWR, though I released it later for general SFM use. A lot of my SFM model releases are long dead, but I do know someone ported it to Gmod too. I'm not sure why I gave up around April of 2016, but Hidden Gems was right around the corner in July so I likely wanted to pivot to making my own FNaF game instead of straying too niche into FNaF Mario content.
In Gamejolt archives there's also a 'FNAW Dev Kit' and 'FNAW Mod Kit'. Weirdly its just 'FNAW' and not 'FNAWR'. I don't know if they were just me reuploading the original FNAW MFA's (I feel like I was given access to them?) or the MFA for FNAWR. They include the renders when I was still collaborating with TripleWario so somewhere around that time.
Overall its a cute project. I think given FNAW's signifigance in the FNaF space, looking back it feels a bit unearned for me to be lodged into the series like that. I got lucky, had connections, and was willing to do whatever at the time to have a chance at making something cool for the community. As a lost media archivist myself I get the obsession people have combing over my old projects given how tiny the old FNaF fanbase was at the time and how elusive its projects were. I wish though it could have been more interesting.
Maybe one day I'll revisit FNAW with a tiny fangame to dick around some concepts. I always loop back around to trying old concepts again. If I ever do its gonna be about taking the lethal dosage Wario MDMA, mark my words.
