Visual Novel / Dayshift at Freddy's

above; music box playing "Never Gonna Give You Up". below; music box playing "All-Star"

"This is a satirical take on the FNaF series where instead of hanging around during the night like a nightguard or a hooligan, you're there at an even scarier time. DURING THE DAYSHIFT."

— Game Jolt page

Dayshift at Freddy's is a series of deliberately... weird Visual Novels made by DirectDoggo in RPG Maker, based on the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. As the title suggests, you work the dayshift at Freddy's. The various activities you can do during the day include performing in a springlock suit, interacting with Freddy's employees from the original series, and having sex with the animatronics. Well, attempting to have sex with the animatronics. Just try not to get killed, or worse, fired. Though the game is mostly pure comedy, your choices do have consequences and lead to 11 different endings in the first game, and 18 in the second. All three games can be downloaded on GameJolt here.

Dayshift at Freddy's 2 was released on June 30, 2017 and can be downloaded on Game Jolt here. A third game, Dayshift at Freddy's 3, is said to be planned to be the final game in the series, has been released on December 29, 2018 in which can be downloaded here - it was rumored to have been cancelled when Doggo suddenly deleted most of his social media accounts as described here, but he then reemerged in August 2018 to clarify that he hadn't stopped working on the game despite shutting down his accounts due to a major health scare.

Because of how story and content heavy they are compared to the first game, both Dayshift at Freddy's 2 and 3 spoilers will be marked.

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The Dayshift at Freddy's series provides examples of:

• Adaptational Villainy: In this universe, Henry was just as bad as his partner William Afton if not worse.
• And I Must Scream: In the second game's Premature ending, Dave will be trapped in the safe room permanently, impaled in a springlock suit, while still aware and conscious.
  • In the Sealed Off ending, the same happens to Old Sport.
  • This is revealed to have once been Old Sport's fate, before the Real Fredbear got involved...
  • Henry Miller was subject to this as an attempt to stop him by Blackjack. All it did was allow his influence to leak out into both the Flipside and the living world with nobody able to find him.
• Arc Words:
  • When the word "Legacy" is brought up, expect the worst of its subject.
  • "Tomorrow is another day" is this for Old Sport.
  • "Happiest Day" is used often in the context of dead children as a catch-all term for being able to rest peacefully.
  • Dave and Henry use "I always come back" to refer to the subject's Determinator status in killing kids, with Dave also using it to refer to his inability to stay dead for long.
• Ascended Extra: Phone Guy is this for being a main character in DSaF compared to a relatively minor role in the original franchise.
• Berserk Button: Phone Guy's is pretty much any mention of sex and Foxy at the same time. Though, this may be justified as the player character is Old Sport and has had sex with Foxy before in Foxy's House of Pleasure.
  • He fires you if you tell him you used to work at Candy's Whoppers and Chips or name yourself Candy, thinking you are trying to destroy the restaurant chain from the inside.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In 2's Happiest Day ending, Old Sport work with Phone Guy to kill and bury Dave. Afterwards, you are freed from working at Freddy's as thanks, but when coming back to visit him on the last day, Dave revives as a zombie and tries to kill Phone Guy with the Bite of '87. Fortunately, the Real Fredbear comes down to stop him, and afterwards, Old Sport puts to rest the kids he's saved along with the Puppet, who is revealed to be his sister. Sadly, his status as The Soulless keeps him from departing. In the Perfect ending, Phone Guy opts to leave Fazbear Entertainment and return to his original life as Peter after regaining his memories. Then, after the Happiest Day, a miserable Old Sport comes to Peter's house, and realizing Old Sport has nowhere to go, lets him stay. It ends with him smiling as Shadow Doggo appears besides Peter's doggo.
  • In 3's good ending, you trap Davetrap and the rest of the haunted robots in the Freddy's you own, and burning the whole thing down with you in it. Then, after beating Henry, everyone, including Dave/Purple Guy, gets to move on, except for you due to your status as The Soulless. As you send off Dave with Blackjack, your stray soul, you return back to burning Freddy's, just in time to see the Real Fredbear nodding at Jack. At peace, Jack smiles as the flames consume him. A news report states that he has died, and that his last will was to convert the land he owned into a graveyard for all the lives lost at Fazbear. The last scene is everyone's tombstones.
• Broken Pedestal: Dave's respect for Henry gets damaged as the good route of the third game goes on. By the time of the final battle, the only thing Dave wants from Henry is to beat him up, which he does with everyone else.
• Cerebus Syndrome: If you're going for the true ending of the second game, things stop being funny and start becoming surprisingly serious and emotional during the fourth day's afternoon, as Old Sport tells Phone Guy about how he used to be trapped in a springlock suit and remain such for the rest of the game. The third game has a scarce amount of humor compared to the others, and most of it is limited to the usual shit Old Sport can get up to while on the job while the story and lore becomes downright depressing outside of the neutral route.
• Creepy Good: The Puppet wants to help the children rather than kill you.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Just like the original games, you can get impaled by metal springlocks if you move too hard and bump them, come into contact with liquid, or piss Phone Guy off while wearing a suit.
• Disposing of a Body: One of your tasks while helping Purple Guy.
  • The second game also reveals that the policy for dealing with dead springlocked employees is to send them 'to the factory'.
• Disproportionate Retribution: You can annoy some people on the FNAF subreddit in the second game. As a punishment, the entirety of Reddit is removed from the world wide web.
• Developer's Foresight: In the second game, you can't summon Phone Guy to the office on the second day because he's busy with the grand re-opening. He'll still come fire you for firable offenses, though.
• Easily Forgiven: In the second game, even when continuing from endings where the employees do things to hurt each other, they don't seem to be affected by it at all other than several passing mentions, though Dave does tell you you're Forgiven, but Not Forgotten for the Crafty Ending.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: During the fight against Henry in the third game, your party members gain new sets of skills for the fight. This trope is zigzagged depending on the party member.
  • Old Sport's "I Promise" Status Buff skill's second use is given to a new skill with the same effect, and he gains an attack skill.
  • Dave's One-Hit Kill skill works the same, but it can only be used against the boss' shield.
  • The Puppet loses the ability to revive, but her healing skill is stronger.
  • Steven doesn't change at all.
  • You also gain two more party members before the fight begins.
• False Confession: Phone Guy gives one in the Crafty Ending for the first game, though it ultimately fails when the cops just decide to arrest both Old Sport and Phone Guy.
• Foreshadowing: The "Flamey ending" of 3 has Old Sport burn down his Pizzeria due to his Phone Guy employee deciding to hire a bunch of furries, using a lighter to light them all up. In the good ending, Old Sport pulls the same thing on Davetrap and his army of possessed animatronics, only this time Old Sport doesn't make it out due to having sealed everything up.
• Frame-Up: Phone Guy does this to Old Sport in the final day of the first game. It's Framing the Guilty Party if you helped Purple Guy all the way.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Can happen on the final day of the first game, if you help Purple Guy all the way.
  Phone Guy: Oh, you were actually in on it? Now I feel much less guilty about framing you for the murders!"
• Gag Censor: In DaF2, Foxy sports an absolutely humongous black bar protruding from his crotch.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  • Both "Old Sport" and Phone Guy do this often. Old Sport does it because he doesn't know many swear words, and Phone Guy does it because he is based off the real Scott Cawthon (creator of Five Nights At Freddy's) who never swears.
  • Dave averts this by swearing normally all the time.
  • In the second game, Phone Guy averts this himself a bunch of times when especially heated.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The second game reveals one in the character of Henry Miller. Henry's desire to create superior robots consisting of "flesh merged with steel" is what inspired the very first string of murders back at Fredbear's Diner. It's implied that Purple Guy (and by extension, Old Sport) never would have become involved with child murder at all if not for Henry's influence, making Henry indirectly responsible for virtually every murder in the history of Freddy's.
• Literal Split Personality: Horribly, horribly deconstructed in both of the cases showcased, both in manners negative and positive as Divergent Character Evolution takes place.
  • Old Sport/Jack Kennedy lost his soul when he died in an ill-fated attempt to rescue his sister from Dave and Henry, and his corpse was revived by The Real Fredbear to avenge and rescue all of the children murdered at Freddy's. His soul eventually evolved into the entity known as Shadow Doggo/Blackjack, neither with any connection to the other part of their being and developing new memories, purposes, and personalities over the span of fifty years. The two cannot merge back into a single entity, and Jack is doomed to cease to exist whenever he dies (which he eventually does in 3's good ending) while Blackjack has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory and can go to the afterlife due to being a soul, but is effectively no longer the Jack the cast knows.
  • Dave has died multiple times, with his soul's constant attachment to his corpse fracturing it over the thirty-plus years between 2 and 3. The reasonable half is able to see what his mortal coil is doing, and eventually slipped into the Flipside where he was gradually able to realise and express horror over what he had done, how he'd lived and been manipulated by Henry, and is eventually able to become a truly good person who can enter the afterlife. It isn't made clear if the Dave/William both the audience and players are familiar with in the form of Springtrap is capable of making it to the afterlife after his undead form is finally killed for good.
• Mistaken for Murderer:
  • In the second game's Sealed Off ending. Though, it's not entirely undeserved since Phone Guy literally says during the tutorial that Dave's suit is Spring Bonnie.
  • If you chose to decline Dave's offer on Day 2, Toy Bonnie will attack Old Sport because of this trope.
• Multiple Endings: Around 10 in the first game and 18 in the second.
• One-Steve Limit: Every Phone Guy is referred to as Phone Guy, being repurposed corpses after their various manners of death, extent of memory-wiping and how much they want to remember or return to their original lives and names.
• Opposed Mentors: Phone Guy and Purple Guy become this towards Old Sport in the second game. Making certain choices can cause either (but not both) of them to start acting downright fatherly.
• Plot Hole: A possible plot line for the Crafty Ending: Phone Guy agrees to keep you out of jail for the murders, then tells the cops you're the killer anyway, and then proceeds to take the heat for you with a False Confession right as the cops are declaring you the killer. Understandably, the cops are pretty confused.
• Porn Stash:
  • Phone Guy has one on the company computer in the second game. It contains 300 identical pictures of Foxy's head photoshopped onto a statue of a naked man with an extremely long black censor box between his legs. That's not all, but the game doesn't allow you to go any further.
  • He also has a PRON(sic) stach which holds Foxy's head photoshopped onto Chica's body. Deleting it is part of one storyline.
• Revenant Zombie: You, it turns out.
• Shout-Out:
  • Many of the animatronics' lines come from Five Nights at Fuckboy's. A certain quest in Fuckboy's, giving Bonnie his face back, is one of the requirements for getting The End[?] in the first game. Other things that may be inspired by it are the mentions of yiffing and the option to perform songs with the robots in the second game. Not to mention one of the songs is "All Star".
    Bonnie: Employee, my fucking head is gone.
    Bonnie: Thank.
    Freddy: Inhale.
    Chica: Devour my hot bird ass, Old Sport/Cool Cat.
    Foxy: Can't a pirate masturbate in this fucking house?
  • In the second game, Candy's from Five Nights at Candy's is one of Freddy's competitors from the Midwest, and has restaurants in the Eastern U.S., while Freddy's has locations in the West. However, Candy's seems to be moving west into "Freddy's territory" according to Phone Guy, who complains that Candy's is stealing Freddy's distinct "possessed child murder robot" appeal.
  • The second game has a random encounter with Stone the Crow from Popgoes where you can either feed it stale bread or tell it to fuck off.
  • The third game is basically Pizza Simulator, where you customize and run your own Fazbear Pizzeria and try and avoid lawsuits and make end's meet. This becomes especially apparent in the good ending, where the whole thing is a trap to lure Davetrap and the rest of the possessed animatronics into a sealed-off room to be burned down.
• Unusual Euphemism: If you say you're sexually attracted to robots, Phone Guy tells you to keep your "schmeckinwhepper" in your briefs.
• Vancian Magic: Skills in the third game are either limited by this trope or have infinite uses.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Even if you refuse to help him, Purple Guy always manages to kill five kids. With one notable exception in the second game: if you are clever enough to let the Puppet know about Purple Guy's murder plot immediately after learning about it, you will have enough time to save the kids and trigger the "Premature Ending".

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