Agony Arena
Agony Arena was a Creepypasta-themed Roblox battlegrounds game "directed" by Francis with coding and art done by a handful of other unpaid developers. Early concepts had been kicking around as early as May 2024, with proper development beginning in August. The early access version with 4 playable characters was slated for an early 2025 release.
In November 2024 during his Ϫth DFE crashout, as a consequence of losing his Twitter account to LiquidChungus, the Discord server for the game was deleted. By January 2025, those who knew Francis considered the project to be dead.
Premise
Battlegrounds is a Roblox subgrenre which is essentially a 3D third-person fighting game, in which players fight with Overwatch-style charged abilities in destructible environments. The original Battlegrounds game was The Strongest Battlegrounds, whose mechanics became would become the basis of the subgenre. Most games in the subgenre are nearly identical, with Agony Arena's selling point being that its cast consisted of Creepypasta and Creepypasta-inspired characters, including Sonic.EXE, Jeff the Killer, and Shucks, an SML character created by SlingMingo. It should be noted that Francis was not the first to have this idea, two Creepypasta-themed Battlegrounds games had been released in the time Agony Arena was being worked on.[1]
The only character to reach a finished state was Sonic.EXE, with Jeff the Killer still being WIP by the time of the crashout. Little else is known about the gameplay, because the project was shitcanned before anything substantial could be released.
Development
Early Concepts & Promotion
The earliest mention(that I know of) of what would eventually become Agony Arena was on May 17th, where he talked about his enjoyment of the Sonic.EXE fandom and stated he intended to add the titular character to his game, then called Fallen Fighters.[2] Francis first announced his intent to get back into Roblox dev in July, shortly after leaving the psych ward.[3] On August 2nd he posted a teaser image for a project called Irida, along with an empty list of credits for it[4].
On August 19th, he posted about starting a new project called Pasta Battlegrounds, a "BG with Creepypasta characters."[5] On the 28th he posted more concepts and a potential roster, stating that the game had been renamed to Agony Arena.[6] He would then post more promotional material over the next few weeks, including a finalized roster and art and music for some of the characters.[7][8][9][10] On 9/11 (in the middle of the Sharty raid geg) he posted a flyer on Twitter seeking more developers and artists.[11]
"Development"
On October 29th, a YouTube video was posted in which Francis got on camera and was interviewed about his game.[12] The interview itself and the build shown was on the 19th. In the video, he stated a TDM mode was planned, but was not meant to replace the base FFA mode. He also stated interest in adding a "build mode" due to another Battlegrounds game adding it, a Pillar Chase 2 inspired mode, and said his ultimate goal was for it to be an "everything game." The business model was to have new characters locked behind the paid game pass, which would be available for free on weekends and then forever once enough time had passed since their introduction. An official [sic] collaboration character from the game Pressure was also announced. Being the tranny chaser he is, Francis included wave dashing as a movement option in a bid to attract as many stinkditchers to his game as possible.
Somehow, Francis had amassed at least 4000 dollars for the project.[13] It would later be revealed that all of it went to Doordash.
According to dev testimonials, Francis' only real contribution to the project was his 2D art. The only other thing he did was write movesets, seethe at his 'Farms thread, and add and remove characters from the roster, confusing and delaying the rest of the team.[14] Much of his communications with the team consisted of them trying and failing to give him Advice, as well as talking him out of suicide at least once. Francis would ignore all feedback unless heavily pressured by the team. The team would work in his absence whenever he was having a sperg meltdown (ie, all the time). There was common frustration about Francis underpaying or not paying the team at all.[15] Zach states that he paid some of the devs out of pocket, and that only one person was ever paid by Francis.[16][17][18]
All of this compounding eventually led the team to quit the project. This included the lead coder forbidding Francis from using his code.[19] It was hinted by Zach that they may be working on their own project without Francis, but nothing relating to this was mentioned after the "lover's quarrel" ended.
Cancellation & Fallout
On October 29th (same day the YouTube video came out zozzle), Francis' Ϫth DFE crashout began. He began by deactivating, then reactivating to say he's selling the account, then saying he's leaving to focus on Agony Arena. He then sold his account GAVE HIS ACCOUNT FOR FREE to LiquidChungus, regretted it, told his following on his alt to mass report the account, then posted on his 'Farms thread as dunkbunko.[20] On November 1st, Francis deactivated his alt and deleted the Agony Arena 'cord. In an interview on the 4th, he stated that development on Agony Arena was paused for the moment.[21]
The next sign that the project wasn't dead came on November 24th, when he posted gameplay footage of Jeff the Killer. On December 4th, he stated the lead dev was rescripting the game.[22] This was the last time Francis ever posted about the game.
On January 27th 2025, Buddyfellaadventures stated in the Thread that Agony Arena "probably isn't being worked on anymore."[23] And thus, the project died with a gay little whimper.
On April 15th, Zach, one of the developers of Agony Arena, entered the thread and answered questions about Agony Arena as well as posted testimonials from the rest of the team. Datsclungo throwaway, claiming to be the lead coder, also posted stating he "did most of this guys work for a fraction of what I should have been paid," having only been paid 50k Robux total.[24]
On April 19th, Francis announced that he had opened a 'cord for his next game project, Printern.[25]
Credits
| Name(s) | Role |
|---|---|
| Francis Benditt IV | Ideas Guy |
| Zach / Fallenchungus' Wrangler | Artist, Tard Wrangler[14] |
| Crimsickle / Crim / Datsclungo? | Lead Programmer, Animator, VFX[24] |
| josee / randomincy | Musician[18] |
| kurtfan5468 | Musician[10] |
| masy / mason | Artist[15] |
| Luciel | Mapmaker[12] |
| Punished "Venom" Donkak | (Unknown)[15] |
| LEZDUIT | (Unknown)[15] |
| (Unknown) | Programmer[26] |
| Boing Bingus | Artist, Animator[27] |
Trivia
- One of the terms of the "deal" with LiquidChungus was that he would use the original FallenChungus account to advertise Agony Arena. This never happened because the game never came out.[28]
- Francis attempted to get Femtanyl, an (in)famous troon musician, to write music for Agony Arena. This collaboration fell through after Femtanyl stopped responding to Francis' DMs.[29]
- The Agony Arena page on the original FallenChungus Wiki was written by AI and contained almost no useful information about the game. View an archive of the page here.
- A .rbxl project file for the game dated 9/12 can be found here. (Offsite archive forthcoming)
Gallery
-
Screenshot of the "Maw" move from Sonic.EXE's moveset. -
Early model of Shucks. Likely the furthest he progressed before the project was abandoned. -
Earliest known post about Agony Arena, then called Fallen Fighters. If there are earlier posts about it, they may have eluded the archives due to DFE sprees. -
Poster for Irida. -
Post announcing Irida with redacted credits. -
First post that uses the name Agony Arena. -
Promo art of 2017x. No archive of the music exists. -
"Final" roster. -
Promo art of Jeff the Killer. -
Flyer posted on Twitter seeking devs, artists, and animators. -
Francis' last post about Agony Arena. -
AGONIZING
References
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19169249
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19010920
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-18959397
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-18994405
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19129133
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19206975
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19214016
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19224196
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19264950
- ^ a b https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19291397
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19313216
- ^ a b https://kiwifarms.st/threads/196329/page-50#post-19691216
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19533463
- ^ a b https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21107729
- ^ a b c d https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21109176
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21107434
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21109657
- ^ a b https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19735633
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21111654
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19710034
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19741850
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-20084451
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-20432199
- ^ a b https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21111163
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21168509
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-21111654
- ^ https://x.com/fallenchungus/status/1829925915716927530
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-20063435
- ^ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/196329/post-19428036