Hello everyone!

September 9th of 2016 marks the one year anniversary of the Five Nights at Vault 5 mod for Fallout: New Vegas. Because of this, I felt inclined to not only prepare a special update that celebrates this occasion, but also to recount all the changes and improvements this mod went through over the course of the year.





For those of you who are unfamiliar with the mod, here's a quick run-down of what Five Nights at Vault 5 is about:

Five Nights at Vault 5 takes the concept of Five Nights at Freddy's and reworks it to fit the Fallout universe. Here, you aren't stuck inside a pizzeria - instead, you come across an abandoned Vault. This particular Vault contains something called the Arena: a supposed survival training program that is, in fact, a highly lethal maze constantly patrolled by robots and filled with various sources of radiation. Your task is to survive in there from midnight to 6 AM, for five nights straight.

Unlike the original series, Five Nights at Vault 5 aims to make the gameplay a lot more interactive than just sitting in one room and looking at the camera feeds. Instead, you have to constantly run around a maze and avoid being seen by the robots. And as if that wasn't bad enough, you also have to take care of occasional terminal alerts that, if not attended to, will eventually start emitting heavy doses of radiation. Your equipment is removed the moment you enter the Arena, and as such, your only means of defense against the robots is closing the various doors placed in there, which will prevent them from attacking you. The doors do not stay locked forever, though, and they emit radiation while closed, so you need to take a more strategic approach to make sure that you only close them when you really need to.

All of this adds up to an experience quite unlike what you might be used to in vanilla Fallout: New Vegas, with gameplay that to some might come off as a sort of 3D Pac-Man. It was thoroughly tested and improved throughout the course of the year, and at this point, I am positive that it gives you the best gaming experience it possibly could.

Anyway, let's take the time to recount the changes Five Nights at Vault 5 has gone through, shall we?





* Originally, the only source of information you had on how to play the mod were manual-like texts on the terminal in the main room. I learned over time that this was a bad idea, because firstly, it was too easy to forget things you read, and secondly, a lot of people were too impatient to read them anyway. Eventually, I ended up making a proper, Portal-like tutorial for the mod, which explains the concepts behind it a lot better and allows you to get the gist of the gameplay in a safe and forgiving environment. Oh, and don't worry, this tutorial is 100% optional.

* At some point I ended up adding a bonus challenge to the mod, called the Ghost Challenge. In it, you have to make it through the nights without being seen, since being spotted at any time will result in an instant death. I feel that it added a lot of replayability to the mod and an extra challenge for those who happened to like the mod's gameplay. Some other things that were added purely for fun were: stats showing how well you play, some easter eggs unlocked at the end of the quest, and even a secret, ultra-hard challenge.

* Over time, I ended up adding a lot of features meant to make this mod more accessible and less difficult. One of them is an option where, if it’s turned on in the mod's settings, will cause time to slow down whenever a robot is chasing you, giving you more time to react. Some other things include an extra door that can be enabled, an option to run 50% faster than normal, an alternate 3rd person view that brings the crosshair closer to the player's head, and some gamepad-related settings.





* The doors were initially nothing more than vanilla doors, except with a script that forced them to reopen after 5 seconds and to stop a robot's attack if he bumps into them while charging at the player. Oh, and the doors had an invisible extra collision that let you close them by aiming at the opening. That's it. There was no clear indication when the door will reopen, or that they are going to reopen at all, and they moved far too slowly for this kind of gameplay. Over the course of subsequent updates, however, the doors were sped up to close and open much faster, they were given special buttons that let you close them from around a corner, the effect they have on the robots has been increased, and they were given both a sound effect AND a special countdown screen that clearly shows when they are going to reopen.

* In the first versions of the mod, the quest forced you to interact with the intercom in the office after every night, so that you could listen to the recordings of the Vault's late Overseer. However, I learned over time that this approach was a bad choice, for two reasons: one is that the scripts behind it tended to break for no apparent reason, making the quest uncompletable. The other reason is that, well, the initial recordings left a bit to be desired, and I had a lot of people complain about the voice acting in the AlChestBreach's video about the mod. Eventually, I ended up reworking the system and rerecording the messages, so that they were a better listen and also 100% optional, meaning that you could make it through the entire quest without interacting with the intercom once.

* There was also a lot of stuff added for the sake of convenience and/or making things clearer, like a "RADIATION DEATH!" sign appearing if you die from radiation poisoning, the mod remembering the changes you made in the options if you die, terminals opening and closing faster, the player's death animation being shortened, better controller support, a visible clock on the player's belt, an arrow pointing in the direction of the robot who killed you, etc...

* A lot of things started out as just vanilla objects with new functionalities slapped onto them, but were given more unique looks over time, like the fourth robot, the terminals, or the Arena entrance. There are also other little things, like the fact that the pipes in the office were tweaked to look less nonsensical in their placement.

* Some serious bugs that I initially had no reliable solution for were eventually fixed, like the lights becoming permanently dark during Night 5, or the robots' AI completely breaking if a save made outside the Arena was loaded from inside the Arena. The game's engine sure is creative in causing completely unexpected problems...





As you can see, the mod went through a lot of changes and improvements. I always wanted the mod to be as good as it can be, and to provide the best possible experience to the player. I am immensely thankful to everyone who played it and shared their feedback on it, especially people who went that extra mile to Let's Play it, such as RuneZ, RedMage or CoffeeTwig. Seriously, all of you people have my most sincere thanks from the bottom of my heart for playing it. And make no mistake - I STILL am looking for new people willing to Let's Play the mod, so if you by any chance are interested in doing so, then I don't think there's a better moment to do so than now!

At this moment in time, I don't have plans for any more changes for this particular mod - I included and tweaked about everything I possibly could. However, I am definitely looking for new projects that I could work on to continue providing worthwhile gameplay experience for all the good people out there. Thank you for taking the time to read this article, and I hope you'll enjoy the newest update for Five Nights at Vault 5!

~ZuTheSkunk