Rock-afire Replay

Rock-afire Replay was the first digital animatronics simulator to ever release, being centered around the Rock-afire Explosion and a small bit of Pizza Time Theatre content as unofficial software, lasting from August 24, 2020 to January 5th, 2021, where the game was deleted due to various pressures from Creative Engineering.
The game became the basis for many future mods that continued the project, such as the officially authorized by Creative Engineering mod Retromation, alongside continuations by the original creator as Faz-Anim and Reel to Real. The game would lead to two separately developed simulator projects currently in the works by Creative Engineering.

History

Beginnings

The game would begin development on August 14th, 2020, with the modeling of Billy Bob's animatronic mech. The next week would be finishing up the model, making a simple stage, animating the movements, and putting it together in Unity. The game's first version would be released in the "Pizza Time Network" Discord server on August 24th, 2020, consisting of a movable camera and the ability to activate Billy Bob's movements with certain keys. The same day an update would release that added movement recording and file sharing. The game would receive multiple weekly updates over the coming months, adding new characters, stages, costumes, and improved features on creating digital shows.⁽¹⁾

Early Development

As soon as recording showtapes had been implemented in the second update, fan shows of various Rock-afire and non Rock-afire songs and audio would be shared and watched in the PTN Discord server and on YouTube. These would be in the form of ".rshw" files, which contained author data, programmed movements, and audio. 20 shows were created by the third day, and by October 1st, 57 shows were available to play on Billy Bob and the new Looney Bird mech. The early culture of this period was exclusively sharing any shows made, making almost the complete archive of fan shows over the next half year fully available. One split in the shows would occur with update v1.3a, which would change the showtape format to be a new incompatible form. A converter would be provided within the next few versions to bring over content to the new format.
This would also be the first time the fandom really had access to live visual programming. Most fan show creators in the past would blindly program shows and send them over to animatronic owners to view their progress. At the time some felt their Replay shows weren't as good as their blind shows, and were discouraged getting used to the live system. Early on an option to merge shows together was added, as blind programmers were used to collaborating with others to each animate certain characters or lighting effects.
By late October, the game would feature a fully programmable Billy Bob, Looney Bird, Rolfe & Earl, and Mitzi, alongside multiple different costumes showing the characters mechs and shells in detail for the first time for the majority of the fandom, taken from many pictures accrued by its members. The general understanding of how the Rock-afire show worked would begin to be known in the wider fandom- previously just by people who physically owned the animatronics. The game would also include a "video archive" of various Rock-afire footage, alongside histories of the stages in the game. The early development pivoted Replay towards education on Creative Engineering and ShowBiz Pizza.
Many aspects of the game were developed around community sentiment. Costumes and characters would be added on a whim of someone suggesting it. Bug fixes were reported often and updated sometimes minutes after being called out. Priority of development was thought of in advance to bring the most wanted pieces as soon as possible, making it a truly community-driven development plan.

RAE Simulator

On October 28th, 2020, the The Rock-afire Explosion Simulator would be released on Kickstarter by Creative Engineering, developed by Ryan Hayes. This project started planning in April, but didn't have a software build until October, with no prior knowledge of Replay's existence. This project merely had a demo of a Billy Bob face that could move its mouth, while Replay had already a massive suite of content by this point. This led most of the fandom to not consider backing the Simulator project, as Replay was already downloadable for free.
Creative Engineering would learn of Replay shortly after the Kickstarter's release, with a flood of comments discussing the games. When someone asked if they had seen this before, Aaron replied "No. I have not given anyone else permission to do this." Aaron would then delete all the comments mentioning Replay, stating

"I have removed comments regarding a competitive game to this that was created by someone who has not contacted me to ask for permission to use my copyrights, trademarks, show material, and the rest of my life's work. I don't have any idea who he is or why he's gone to the trouble of creating a game without asking to work with me. I've already signed a deal with Ryan to build this game before Ryan and I even knew there was someone doing a similar game. If anyone knows who the creator of the game is that is similar to what we are creating here, please let me know. I am curious as to why someone would make such an investment in something this complex without first getting the rights to distribute it. Maybe he can change his game to a FNAF or a CEC or any other characters, but I would highly advise him to check with the copyright owners before doing the work." "...And , if you know who he is, please invite the creator of the knock off game to introduce himself to me."⁽²⁾

The 64th Gamer would reply stating the game as simply a passion project, and to hope the official simulator could co-exist with it. Aaron would then offer to have them work with him and Ryan on the RAE Simulator, noting:⁽²⁾

"I'll be very disappointed if we can't take this opportunity not only to have 64th's talent on our team, but also to unite behind this goal. It's true that in my vision, 64th doesn't control this project, but he was never entitled to that. His vision and talent is greatly respected by me. But his vision doesn't go as far as Ryan and I are promising the fans with absolute accurate simulation of the real world effects on these moving parts, and the tools to program these characters that will become the actual tools that I myself will use to program my own show." "...Without financial success, a demo like 64th has given us cannot survive and develop further."⁽²⁾

There was also some potential worry that since Aaron did not know who 64th was, that he was part of one of the few harassment groups within the fandom. 64th would contact Aaron about a collaboration, but would cease communication after Aaron required 64th's full legal name to proceed talks.⁽²⁾

Development Continues

As new characters and stages were added, the technical debt, bad code optimization, and beginner programmer mistakes would severely begin to hinder the game's performance, making it unplayable on a lot of systems. Users had to resort to prior updates to continue playing. Due to the fandom's general separation from the PC or gaming markets, many had cheap laptops or no computer at all to run the game. Throughout November, the New Rock-afire Explosion would be added to the game, alongside the first code contribution by member Himitsu, which drastically improved the games performance. The fix was enough to bring everyone into the latest versions going forward. Lots of bug fixes and polishing would be done through the end of the month. A new ticket and prize corner system was also implemented, which would reward players for time programming shows with tickets to redeem on daily random prizes. These would be various props users could use to decorate their stage or mess around with. Some would also have functionality, such as a recreation of a Fatz slide puzzle.

Fan Show Fiasco

Over the coming days and weeks from the launch of the Kickstarter, Aaron would become highly agitated of the fandom's ability to make showtapes of any song or audio they wished with Aaron's characters, despite this also being a feature of the RAE Simulator. He would write:

"...You should see the s*** I took down last night. Without me fighting for the Rock-afire, it would be destroyed quickly. If you guys want to program simulated animatronic characters to do and say whatever you want, why don't you make up your own characters? Why do you have to destroy my life's work?"
"...I asked the creator of Replay to talk to me about these concerns. But he has not contacted me. Meanwhile, I have asked that people who publish Rock-afire content ask me to approve it. Letting every 13 year old with no filter and an enjoyment of watching the characters cuss is not the future of The Rock-afire. I have never had a problem with fan art, but these videos crossed the line into a "content" category that will lead to the ruin of the Rock-afire if not controlled."⁽²⁾

By the middle of November, Aaron had become furious with the community's shows, regardless of their profanity, as he felt it was encroaching on his copyrights, which was intensified by Aaron's various court hearings that month. He would put out a bounty for $100 in Rock-afire merch for anyone who could find 64ths full name and address so he could be served a lawsuit.⁽⁴⁾
On the 15th of November, Aaron would take down multiple fan-shows featuring profanity from "JWS0127 3", which inadvertently caused the entire channel to be terminated. Both of these events caused immediate disdain in the community, and caused 64th to remove downloads for Replay out of the fear of being sued.⁽⁴⁾

CEI's Change of Mind

Suddenly on November 16th, Aaron would then release his "Olive Branch for Rock-afire Replay" video, which had now finally addressed the game to CEI's subscribers. The video would completely flip on Aaron's previous statements, instead detailing a process to have fan-shows approved by Aaron before being uploaded to YouTube, otherwise they would by copyright striked. Aaron also made calls to restore JSW's channel. Despite CEI's showtapes in the 2010's using profanity, Aaron claimed since the release of Five Night's at Freddy's that he wanted the Rock-afire to return to more family friendly content from the influx of kids now discovering his channel, leading to this decision. The video also flipped Aaron's view on Replay to begrudging support, stating that he wanted to eventually program shows in Replay, and hold contests for fan shows. He still believed that the RAE sim would outperform Replay in the long run.
Around this time, an infamous fan-show of the song "Ram Ranch" would appear on YouTube, uploaded in defiance to Aaron's policing. Aaron would use this show as an example for the future to explain the worst that he had to remove.
On November 26, 2020, the RAE Sim would be cancelled from a lack of funds on the Kickstarter, as now the full fandom's attention had been moved to Replay's ongoing development. Aaron would continue to claim the simulator was still in production over the next few months, but this would eventually fizzle out and stop at an unknown time.

December's Development

December would see more New Rock-afire assets added, Klunk, Sun, and Beach bear added to the main Rock-afire stage, and cursed outfits like "Molfe" (which replaced Rolfe's cosmetics with Mitzi's, given then had the same base mech) and "Earlfe" (which replaced Rolfe's head with Earl's).
On Christmas Day, the first Chuck E. Cheese content would be added, featuring Cyberamic mechs of Chuck E. and Helen. This would bring in the CEC fandom to the game, which at the time was generally separated from the Rock-afire side and not as large. The following days would add the rest of the members in a semi-complete state.

CEI's Reversal

On January 3rd, 2021, CEI would post on a Facebook group wishing for Replay to rebrand as a Chuck E. Cheese simulator and to stay away from his brand, an ironic coincidence mimicking the same sentiments CEI had during Concept Unification . He would write:

"Yea.. It's too bad 64th gamer wanted to go this journey on the run, anonymously, and against IP law. You have seen me team up with a lot of people. but this guy has his steet cred. He's a thief, plain and simple and he's enlisted you all to help him damage my IP and my business."
"64th Gamer could potentially be liable for $1000 in damages for every person who downloads his 'free' program and uploads their shows without permission to YouTube." "This is one of the most serious breaches of copyright law we have seen in the community..." "...The kids who have fallen for it are as much his victims as they are his 'useful tools' to try and destroy and steal my intellectual property. He is next."⁽⁵⁾

That day, Replay would reband to "Pizza Time Player" in an attempt to follow Aaron's advice and focus on CEC content, hoping to stay out of legal trouble. After some consideration, and at the time not really being interested in making exclusively CEC content, this would swiftly change on January 5th to fully cancelling the game and removing all downloads. The last public version would be Alpha 1.24.1. January's changes would mostly be bug fixes and NRAE additions.⁽⁵⁾

Post-Cancellation

Despite the game's removal, Aaron would continue discussing the game, especially due to no formal reasoning for Replay's cancellation being explained outside of the PTN Discord, which caused Aaron to have to explain to many that he did not personally remove the game.⁽⁶⁾

"...Replay went down because 64th Gamer took it down. Why do people ask me what 64th Gamer's motives are? I offered him an opportunity to make the game a legit, licensed product, but he insists he must steal the IP. He may be a severely autistic young man whose father isn't helping him. That's the only reason I can figure as to why he would pick 'loser' as his permanent status even though he hit on a game people like."
"...If you want Replay, talk to the creator into dealing with me. Otherwise, we may or may not run into trouble down the road depending on what else he does without permission."
"...He's done a good job without any help, but he DOES need help. I'll bet he's salivating at the thought of getting all my mechanical drawings. But, without a deal, I'm keeping those books carefully packed away."

On the 13th of January, Aaron would begin making claims of the software's potential to be a virus, and incorrectly stating the game was breaking the Unity license. This would be a misunderstanding of the separation from the commercial licenses, and the personal license the game was under. ⁽⁶⁾
On the 15th, Aaron would make one final call for the game to be developed with CEI, writing:

"Let's bury the hatchet and work on a project together. I am going to be selling my building in the near future. That means the tours I give will come to an end. It also means I'll have the financial means to support a big project. Let's create a virtual tour of The Jefferson Building while it's still there, where all the shows and pieces actually work. I am open to creating programmable versions of all the shows as well as long as we have a system for preventing vulgar uplaods. Imagine having access to all the mechanical drawings of the Hard Luck Bears, the rock-afire and everything else. We just have to work together for this to have a future."

64th would not respond to the message, choosing to continue developing the game privately. Fan-shows would continue to be worked on for the coming years on the final version of the software. Aaron would also make a single "Programming Lesson" video in October which featured helping someone program a fan-show.⁽⁷⁾

Private Development

Immediately after the game's cancellation, updates would continue to be worked on in private with a selection of users testing things. January would see video showtapes properly introduced, alongside more NRAE progress. Feeling the private builds being a waste without the community backing it, the game would split into the Five Nights at Freddy's fangame "Faz-Anim", releasing its first version (continuing the version number of the private builds) on January 22nd on Discord, and publicly on February 2nd. Faz-Anim players would get to see the real-time improvements carried from the private 'Pizza Time Player' builds over the coming years.
The April 19th build, v1.34a, would have Faz-Anim and PTP combine into one codebase that compiled to two games. Development would mostly focus on the public-facing Faz-Anim version, with minor progress to the PTP build being of the Fatz mech and a Beach Bear with cosmetics, alongside more CEC characters. On September 10th, 2021, all Rock-afire assets would be stripped from the game, with plans for the game to eventually re-release as a CEC simulator. This would come to be the game 'Reel to Real', released on July 24th, 2022.