Game Theory - You Were MEANT To Die! (Finding Frankie)

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Join Game Theory Host Tom as he exposes the secrets hiding in Finding Frankie!

I have found Frankie. After just one visit to this deadly trampoline park, it's become clear that this show wasn't made to make money or to entertain viewers as they watch people meet their gruesome ends. It was made with far more personal intent, and we fell for it hook, line and sinker. Hello internet, welcome to Game Theory. And welcome to another week of Tom plays catch up because all the indie horror games release on Halloween, but we can only cover one thing a week, so here we are in

December still playing horror games from two months ago. Although I will say, I am very intrigued by today's subject. Today, we are talking about Finding Frankie. And the reason I've been so intrigued by this is because this isn't your typical mascot horror walking simulator. This is a parkour game with actual platforming, dodging obstacles, and grind rails, which is a breath of fresh air when you look at the humble beginnings of the genre. And, you know, no one hates feeling like Sonic the Hedgehog.

Rolling around at the speed of sound. And this also doesn't seem to be like Poppy or FNAF where you return to the scene of the crime. are chased down by the souls of dead children. Instead, we're taking part in a game show where you must try and survive the many dangers that lurk around every corner of Frankie's Park or Palace, from trampolines with insane heights to full guy's style obstacles, and of course, a giant killer bunny that wants to murder you. We couldn't get rid of all the tropes now, could we? And while I could totally explore how even without the sawblades, incinerators and deadly slime,

this park or park was already too dangerous to exist, what I'm more interested in are the deep philosophical questions. Who are we? Why are we here and who is running this murdery game show? On the surface, I wasn't even sure I would find an answer to these questions. It seems like finding Frankie's devs kept the story simple in order to focus on the gameplay. But the more time I spent in this death park, the more I realized that the story the devs were telling was far more intricate than we could ever have imagined, a story of lies, deception and betrayal.

So put on your Frankie suits theorists because we got a jump, slide and swing our way through the law of finding Frankie. We assume the role of one of the lucky contestants for this game show after receiving our golden ticket, or in this case a VHS, in our cereal box. You'd think it'd be pretty obvious which cereal box had the taping just based on the weight, but game show got a game show, I guess. Now, you and the other contestants have arrived at Frankie's Parkour Palace, ready to race and survive whatever the game throws at you, hoping to win the $5 million cash prize. But after the other contestants are instantly killed by Frankie, we realize this might be harder than it looks on TV. Throughout your parkour challenges, you are constantly avoiding death at the hands of the show's

mascots, Frankie and Henry Hotline, or, you know, just falling to your death. I'm disrespecting you! No, no, no, no. Eventually, though, we meet the guy running the show. He looks similar to Frankie, but slightly less murdery, though the constant toothy grin is a little unsettling. This is other Frankie, and he tells us that the show is going back. with this being the last season, spurring us on to keep playing the game.

Like we have a choice. After even more deadly parkour, we finally go head to head with the real Frankie, only for all the platforms to disappear beneath us and for us to fall to our deaths. Also we fought in typical TV drama fashion, somehow we escaped our descent into the incinerator and go on to claim our well-earned prize money. But other Frankie has other plans. And that is where the game leaves us. Like I said, it's a pretty simple story that sets up future sequels in a way that makes sense.

However, there are still plenty of questions left for theorists like us to try and solve. For starters, how and why did the largest trampoline park in the world become this deadly game that we find ourselves in? Well, if you're willing to pause your park or shenanigans for just a moment and take a closer look around the environment, we begin to find our answer. One of the TV screens tells us that Frankie's originally started as a serial company owned by two brothers, who decided to sell the IP so that the franchise could expand and become the worldwide phenomenon it is today. I suppose that explains the whole cereal box aspect from the beginning of the game. Gotta build your mascot murder empire somehow. But before you get to that TV, there is a staff-only area.

And in it, there's a newspaper clipping that tells us who took over the business to help make this grand ambition a reality. A man named Stan Ellie. He decided to expand the brand by adding new mascots such as Henry Hotline and Deputy Duck. He also began building physical locations for the characters to appear in across the US, with the first one being in California, likely the very park or park was standing in. It seems like Frankie's Park or Palace started out as a totally innocent business venture, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. At the end of the game, we get a flashback to our decrepit apartment and we're actually able to move around.

The scene isn't very long, but if you're quick, you can find another newspaper clipping floating in the air. After doing some quick Photoshop magic to lower the exposure, you can read what the article says. Quote, police were called to investigate the newly opened Frankie's Park or Palace after reports of a foul odor emanating from beneath the trampolines. True enough, when they went to investigate, they found an old animatronic with a child stuffed inside. Nope, wait, that's a different franchise. The police did find a dead body, although the identity has been kept a mystery. You can actually find where this happened in the trampoline section of the game, with police tape surrounding the hole in the floor and blood on the support beams.

As you can imagine, this wasn't so good for business, and so Frankie's became abandoned. Although, according to one of the TVs in Frosted Peaks, in 2001, someone had a bright idea that very few characters in indie horror franchises seem to have. They said, you know what, let's lean in. Use the news in our favor and turn this now defunct death park into a death. Game. Way to take advantage of the SEO there, guys. So now we have a rough timeline of events. Cereal Company sells the IP, makes the parkour park, someone dies, and the franchise becomes a murder game show. Now, here we are, part of the 57th and final season of the show. And clearly, we're meant to be something

special because the game won't stop bringing it up. No one has ever made it this far. Usually only mere seconds. If you're lucky, a minute or two. You're the first contestant we've ever had who won. Hundreds of people last a few seconds. A few last a couple of minutes. Although this isn't just down to our sick parkour skills. If you look in the surveillance office where we first met Other Frankie, a whiteboard has written out the status of the game show contestants.

Next to the contestant that's still alive, us, it says keep alive until the very end. And throughout the game, we encounter Other Frankie doing exactly that, keeping us alive. When you're making your way through the water park, Other Frankie stops you from going one way and lifts a shutter door for you to help your progress. When you encounter Frankie in the vents, Other Frankie tells him, literally stopping him from killing us.

And if you look hard enough, other Frankie can be seen hiding in the darkness of various parts of the park, watching us, ready to step in and help if we need it. Now, you might think he's just looking out for the show. With us surviving, the numbers are going way up, and that could save the show from bankrupt. But I actually think there's a little more to it than that.

Before you make it to Frosted Peaks, you can see two screens with the live chat of the game show. Most of it contains people betting on how long you're gonna last, or assuming the player is a bot because he's too good. But there's one comment that stood out to me. It's the only message not in all caps, which if you've been part of any live stream, you'll know immediately mean something weird is going on. But more importantly, the message says, I know it's you. Where is my brother? Unlike all the other messages, this one is aimed directly at us, the player. Our identity is also brought up again at the end of the game when you return to the title screen. On it is now a sign that says, be back soon.

Underneath that text, though, is a code. Specifically, this is known as a pig pen cipher. It's a type of substitution cipher that replaces letters with shapes based on grids like this. By decoding it, we can see that it says, I know who you are. With all this attention being put on our identity, We have to be more significant to this story than just a guy who lucked out and got the VHS. But then who are we? That vague chat message asked us where their brother was, which immediately made me think back to the two brothers who started Frankie's.

It's the only other mention of brothers so far in this game, so it feels like those two need to be connected. And therefore, who we are must also be connected to them. But outside of that, we don't really have a whole lot to go on outside of the fact that we live in a crummy apartment. And the flashback scene doesn't last long enough for us to really dig around and explore for more clues, which means it was time for some out-of-the-box thinking. Or should I say, out-of-the-game thinking. By breaking the boundaries of the game, we can explore much more of this apartment, revealing that there's actually a whole second room filled with monitors that are connected

to security cameras from Frankie's Park or Palace. On one of those monitors, we see the words Welcome Back S, as well as a piece of paper numbering the seasons of Frankie's show, with the 57th, the current season we're competing in, circled. Finally, above those numbers are the words, everything changes, which I'm sure it would if you were about to win $5 million. But we've actually seen this phrase once before. During the Frosted Peak section, before you start the initial climb, you can take these stairs off to the side and find what is labeled the CEO's office. In this room, we can find a set of documents for an apartment rental that also has those same words on it. Everything changes.

We are the CEO of Frankie's. And the one we read about, the one who took over the company from the original founders, was Stan Ellie. Welcome back, S. Is this why he's being kept alive? Because he's the CEO of the company? I mean, not a great look to kill your own boss. Plus, what better way to get your ratings up while also making sure you don't lose any of the money? Your CEO competes, he wins the money, puts it back into the business, and the ratings go sky high.

Everything changes, because the business is going to win on all fronts. Although, why would he then need to have found the V8? We see stacks of cereal boxes in his apartment all labelled as if he's actively looking for this thing. But if he was the CEO, he could just enter under false pretenses. He's the boss. He can literally do whatever he wants. And also, why would he need to be monitoring everything from his home? There has to be something deeper going on here.

And what that is becomes a little more clear when you check out the final item floating in the apartment. Another newspaper clipping. This time it's about how we, Stan Ellie, were accused of being involved in the murder of one of the original founding. as Sean Sykes, and we were being accused by none other than Sean's brother, the other original founder, Michael. So that message about where's my brother? I think we found out who that came from and who that body that was discovered under the floorboards belongs to. Because of these accusations, the company looked to take on a different venture, like, say, becoming a death game, and Stan decided to resign as CEO. Stan, therefore, couldn't have rigged the game in his favour because he's no longer the guy in charge. He'd been shamed out of his position, accused of a horrific crime and was left with nothing.

That apartment contract from the CEO office was likely from his last day in position, finding a cheap, crummy apartment for him to move to after losing his job, because that's all he could afford. However, as we see from the apartment, he clearly had a plan. He set up monitors in his apartment connected to the CCTV of Frankie's, watching what was going on. Why? To train. We can see the number of other CETTV. seasons on the monitors. He's been watching for a long time. If he wanted out of this life he was now

in, he needed to win Big. So he watched and learned. That's how he knew to run sideways and passed Frankie at the very beginning where everyone else normally dies. He'd been planning his victory for a while. And now, the show is in its last season, putting up their biggest prize ever. $5 million. This would be his last shot at winning big. He'd been preparing for this. So, as we see, in the first cutscene of the game, he went out and bought hundreds of boxes of cereal to guarantee his place in the show. And on Box 769, he finds the elusive VHS. From here, everything changes. No longer would he be the disgraced former CEO of a tainted franchise living in a crummy apartment. He'd go back to the scene of the crime and he'd walk away back on top once again.

So I guess it's a little bit more like Poppy and Fnaff than I thought. Except then I remembered something Henry Hotline said to us the second time we meet him. We aren't going bankrupt and this isn't our last game show. As soon as you're eliminated, four new cereal boxes will be sent out all around the world. Sitting and waiting for its lucky contestant just like you. Henry says that they aren't going bankrupt and given his head explodes right after this, almost as if he's said too much and he's therefore being got rid of, I'm kind of inclined to believe him, which means the entire pretense that this is the final season is a complete lie. But if that's the case,

why do it? Was it just to boost ratings? I saw this kind of thing all the time when I was working back at places like Fox and Disney. If the show isn't getting the ratings, the network might choose to announce that this season will be its last, which can sometimes result in such a boost in the ratings that the network will then rethink their initial plans to cancel it. This happened recently, with Yellowstone, which, after announcing the fifth season would be its last, had 16.4 million people watching that final episode. A massive increase compared to the 8.8 million at the start of the season, and since then, Paramounts have appeared to soften their stance on whether they will renew for a sixth season. Frankie could be doing the same thing with their viewers, declaring bankruptcy

to get more eyeballs on the show. But if the show isn't going bankrupt, it feels like a bit of an unnecessary gamble just for a few more views. Especially if, the news got out, like, you know, having one of your mascots spill the beans mid-show. Unless, of course, it was never about trying to get lots of people's attention. It was about getting the attention of just one. Someone who was desperate for a big payday that could then be trapped here and forced to suffer for what they did. That's right, loyal theorists.

This final season of Frankie's death game was all a ruse to capture and torture our player character, Stan Ellie. The writing is quite literally on the wall, with messages like, Like, we'll never let you go and no more bad behavior. Bad behavior is likely referring to the murder that Stan supposedly committed. And don't forget about the I know who you are Pigpen Seifer left by Frankie. Whoever is behind this death game, they know who Stan is and what he did. By declaring themselves to be going bankrupt and offering a massive cash prize,

this would be Stan's last chance to win. He thought he could come in, win the prize money and bail. But that was never an option. Once he won, he was forced to stay here and keep competing. Now, I'm going to stick my neck out a bit here. Because while the game has purposefully kept who the new management of Frankie's is, based on everything we've talked about, there's only one person who would not only know everything about Stan and the murder,

but would also have the motivation for this kind of elaborate revenge plot. Michael Sykes, the other co-founder of Frankies and the brother of the late Sean Sykes. The newspaper article never mentions Stan actually being convicted of murder, just that he was accused and then resigned. Yes, he lost everything, forced to live in a decrepit apartment with barely anything to his name. But for Michael, that isn't justice. That isn't enough. Stan needed to feel pain like he did. And so, the point of declaring the bankruptcy wasn't to boost ratings.

It was to capture Stan, making him think he was coming of his own volition, to play in a game he thought he'd trained for, to win so much needed. cash. But now Michael has Stan exactly where he wants him, able to exact his revenge on him for what he did to his brother. He sent those chat messages of where is my brother to tease Stan, to remind Stan of what he did, and then he refuses to let Stan go after he wins at the end of the game. Forced to endure this cycle of torture again and again, season after season. So there you have it, theorists. We found Frankie, his secret hiding spots, his identity and his But did you find the Five Freddy's I hid throughout this episode?

Yeah, they're definitely there. Go back and see if you can spot them. And let me know down in the comments where you think they are. Regardless, I'm very excited to see what cruel revenge plots Michael Sykes will cook up for the next season. And I'm intrigued to see how Stan Ellie is going to try and survive and maybe whether he'll walk away with the thing he wants most. A fresh start. In the meantime, remember, that's just a theory. A game theory!

Thanks for watching.