Friday Night Funkin'

Friday Night Funkin'
File:Friday Night Funkin'.png
Programmer(s)	Ninjamuffin99
Artist(s)	Phantom Arcade evilsk8r
Composer(s)	Kawai Sprite
Engine	OpenFL
Platform(s)	Browser Microsoft Windows macOS Linux
Release	November 1, 2020
Genre(s)	Rhythm
Mode(s)	Single-player

Friday Night Funkin' is a free-to-play and open-source indie rhythm game for PC developed by a team of four Newgrounds users: programming by Ninjamuffin99 (in OpenFL via Haxe), art and animations by Phantom Arcade and evils8kr, and music composed by Kawai Sprite. The game has a play style reminiscent of Dance Dance Revolution and PaRappa the Rapper with an aesthetic reminiscent of Flash games popular in the early-mid 2000s on platforms such as Newgrounds.

The game revolves around the player character, simply named "Boyfriend", who has to defeat an array of characters in singing and rapping contests for him to be able to date his love interest, "Girlfriend".

Gameplay

File:Friday Night Funkin' Game Screenshot 01.jpg

Gameplay of Friday Night Funkin'. The arrows on the right side of the screen move upwards and the player must press the respective key on their keyboard to hit the arrows.

Friday Night Funkin' is a rhythm game in which the player must pass multiple "weeks", each usually containing three songs. Each week, the player typically faces a different opponent.

During gameplay, the opponent will sing a pattern of notes which the player must mirror by pressing the arrow keys or the keys W, A, S, and D, respectively. Later songs introduce more complicated patterns, with the player's pattern varying from the opponent's or both singers engaging in a duet. At the bottom of the screen is a bar indicating how well the player is doing. The left side of the bar is red, representing the opponent. The right side is green, representing the player. Successfully hitting notes will increase the size of the player's bar, while missing notes or pressing when there are no notes will cause the opponent's bar to expand. The player fails if the opponent's bar fills up the entire bar.

For each week, the player has the option to select one of three difficulties: Easy, Medium, and Hard. As difficulty increases, the speed of incoming arrows increases and the patterns of arrows become more complicated. The player's high score for each week on each difficulty is tracked and shown in the top corner of the week selection screen.

The player can also play in "free play" mode, where the "week" structure and any cutscenes are ignored and the player can play any individual song on its own.

Plot

As of version 0.2.7.1 of Friday Night Funkin', there are 6 weeks the player must play through, as well as an upcoming 7th week and more weeks afterwards.

Week 1

Week 1 (titled "Daddy Dearest") features the songs "Bopeebo", "Fresh", and "Dad Battle". The player takes the role of a blue-haired boy referred to as "Boyfriend" (often shortened to "BF") who wants to date his girlfriend (similarly shortened to "GF"), but her father, an ex-rock star known as "Daddy Dearest", disapproves of their relationship. Boyfriend must convince her father to let him date her through musical talent.

Week 2

Week 2 (titled "Spooky Month") features the songs "Spookeez" and "South". As Skid and Pump (a cameo of characters created by YouTuber and animator Sr. Pelo) celebrate Spooky Month as they always do, they come across Girlfriend's parents' house and a monster (simply named "Monster") wants Skid and Pump to bring Girlfriend over to be his "special treat" and to challenge Boyfriend to win Girlfriend. Week 2 is infamous for its songs being some of the hardest songs in the game.

Week 3

Week 3 (titled "Pico") features the songs "Pico", "Philly Nice" (shortened to "Philly" in-game), and "Blammed". After being humiliated during the first week, Daddy Dearest hires a hitman, named Pico, to kill an "unknown target". However, after arriving at the location, he realizes this target is Boyfriend, who he formerly knew. Deciding to spare his life, Pico instead declares a rap battle.

Week 4

Week 4 (titled "Mommy Must Murder") features the songs "Satin Panties", "High", and "M.I.L.F". Boyfriend must face-off against Girlfriend's mother, known simply as "The Mom". Week 4 takes place on the rooftop of a couple of limousines with dancing devils in the background. "M.I.L.F" is particularly infamous for being one of the hardest songs in the game.

Week 5

Week 5 (titled "Red Snow") features the songs "Cocoa", "Eggnog", and "Winter Horrorland". Week 5 takes place in a shopping mall, seemingly during Christmas, where Boyfriend must battle against both of Girlfriend's parents who have taken the mall's Santa's chair hostage by holding him at gunpoint. This week stands out for the cameo of several well-known Newgrounds characters in the background, including Pico, Henry Stickmin, Meat Boy, ZONE-tan, and other characters such as Hatsune Miku and Monster. For the third song, the lights go out and come back on to reveal everyone has disappeared. The setting has a red tint and the Christmas tree is decorated with a frightening decoration resembling Girlfriend's head. This was done by Monster who has now taken over the mall and makes his "official" debut in the game with the song "Winter Horrorland".

Week 6

Week 6 (titled "Hating Simulator") features the songs "Senpai", "Roses", and "Thorns". Boyfriend and Girlfriend are playing Hating Simulator, a fictional PlayStation dating simulator, when they get sucked into the game and battle against a character presumably named "Senpai". Initially appearing as a gentleman, he loses his composure after the first song and threatens Boyfriend. After the second song, he transforms into an evil spirit (simply named "Spirit") that has been trapped in the game by Daddy Dearest. He intended to use Boyfriend's body to escape and take revenge on Daddy Dearest for trapping him and other people in the game. Boyfriend defeats Spirit and escapes the game along with Girlfriend, leaving Spirit behind.

Characters

Rather than focusing on a fixed cast of characters, Friday Night Funkin' features a rotating cast of opponents, many of whom originate from or parody other Newgrounds mascots, creations or users.

The only consistently recurring characters within the game are Boyfriend, a blue-haired young rapper college dropout sporting a backwards baseball cap, and Girlfriend, a young brunette girl sporting a red dress who Boyfriend must serenade to complete the game's weeks.

"Daddy Dearest" is a former rock star and Girlfriend's father. He seeks to test whether or not the boyfriend is worthy of dating his daughter.

The Mom is Girlfriend's mother and wife of Daddy Dearest. She is a pop singer who tests the boyfriend as well and performs with a crew of backup dancers.

Skid and Pump are a pair of Halloween costume-wearing children. They are a cameo from the "Spooky Month" series of web animations by YouTube animator Sr. Pelo.

Pico is one of the mascots of Newgrounds, originally from a 1999 Flash game "Pico's School" and several other spin-offs by Tom Fulp, the creator of Newgrounds. He was teased in the first trailer for Friday Night Funkin' as a playable character.

Monster is a mysterious creature with a lemon for a head who appears at night. He was an unused character to be featured in the third song of Week Two (titled "Monster"). The monster later debuted in Week 5, in the song "Winter Horrorland," where he torments the two main characters and wants to eat Girlfriend.

Senpai is a character that appears in a dating game spoof called Hating Simulator, which plays on a console that is a spoof of the PlayStation. In the course of his battle with Boyfriend, he later manifests as an evil spirit (simply named "Spirit") during the song "Thorns". He, along with Girlfriend and Monster, are the only characters in the game who actually speak English.

Upcoming Characters

Tankman, also known as Sergeant John Captain, is the main protagonist of the web animation "TANKMEN" by JohnnyUtah who also made the current logo for Friday Night Funkin'. He was the main mascot of and appeared in the logo of Newgrounds before he debuted in "TANKMEN". He is a soldier wearing a helmet, uniform, gloves, and pants in black while his skin, visor, and vest are white. He was accidentally revealed as the antagonist of Week 7 in Phantom Arcade's Twitch live stream.

Cassette Girl is a young, light-skinned girl with black hair wearing a dark grey-blue hoodie, short black shorts, a slightly torn-up dark gray-blue hat that resembles a cassette deck, and untied white sneakers. She was made by user SoftDon in 2018 and was going to be a music-related mascot. She is currently the only character not made for Friday Night Funkin' to not have any games or animations featuring or associated with her.

Hank J. Wimbleton is a mercenary, who is the main protagonist of the "Madness Combat" series by user Krinkles.

Ritz is a grey-furred anthropomorphic rat and is the main protagonist of the game Ritz, which Ninjamuffin99 developed and Kawaisprite composed the music for. He wears an orange beanie with a white arrow pointing downwards, red fingerless gloves, orange sneakers, and triangle-shaped sunglasses. Ritz was teased when Ninjamuffin99 posted a GIF of Ritz in the art style of the game on his Twitter page, but deleted it 30 seconds later. Many had speculated that Ritz was to be the antagonist for Week 7, but this turned out to be false. However, Ninjamuffin99 confirmed that Ritz will be a antagonist for an upcoming week.

Tankman, Cassette Girl, and Hank J. Wimbleton were teased as playable characters in the first trailer for Friday Night Funkin'.

Development

Ninjamuffin99 and three of his friends from Newgrounds (artists Dave "Phantom Arcade" Brown and evilsk8r, as well as composer Isaac "Kawai Sprite" Garcia) initially developed Friday Night Funkin' as a submission to the Ludum Dare, posting a demo online with only one week. The demo received unexpected success, leading to many requests for a full game. Ninjamuffin99 said that he was already planning to expand the game from the start and to think of the Ludum Dare build as more of a prototype than a demo for the game.

Ninjamuffin99 posted a new build on Newgrounds and later Itch.io on November 1, 2020 that added Week 2. Interest in the game grew, and it became the highest-rated game in Newgrounds' 25-year history. The game has also received significant attention via trends on platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Twitch. The game has an active modding community due to its open source release, allowing for the implementation of fan-made content.

Its soundtrack, by composer Kawai Sprite, has been made available for free on Bandcamp and Spotify. One of the songs of the soundtrack, "M.I.L.F" was ranked 20 over 50 in trending on Spotify on March 6th.

Only two songs are playable during Week 2 due to the week's third song, titled "Monster," having been scrapped due to issues pertaining to the song's beatmap. It features the titular character Monster (who later officially appeared in the fifth week) singing in English unlike most other tracks in the game. The song and character were later discovered through the game's debug menu. After seeing the unused assets for Monster, user ChaoticGamer fully mapped the notes for the song but left in Monster's unfinished animations. Ninjamuffin99 was impressed with how well ChaoticGamer mapped the song and now plans on adding the song back to the game properly while fixing and changing some stuff in the original song and crediting ChaoticGamer for his work.

Ninjamuffin99 has expressed plans to release Friday Night Funkin' on Steam, Epic Games Store, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and mobile devices (due to many bootleg Friday Night Funkin' games and apps appearing on the App Store and Google Play Store). The full game was initially planned to have about 10 weeks worth of songs with different characters in each week, but currently Ninjamuffin99 doesn't know how many weeks there will be, but plans to eventually reveal how many will be in the game.

Merchandise

In January 29, 2021, the first offical merchandise of Friday Night Funkin', Boyfriend and Pico shirts designed by PitooKettles, was uploaded to Shark Robot for purchase. Ninjamuffin99 has also confirmed that more merchandise is likely.

Friday Night Funkin' is currently the most 5 star rated game in Newgrounds' 25 years

Modding

Friday Night Funkin' is well-known for being open source, meaning that anyone can mod the game very easily as long as they have artistic, animation, music and coding experience.

A popular example of a mod of the game is "V.S. Whitty", which adds a fan-created stage to the game as well as the entirety of the current build (as of writing this) of Friday Night Funkin' with setting options, a replay mode, new inputs, gameplay at 126 frames per second, and customizable controls. The mod introduces a new character named Whitty by Nate Anim8, a hot-headed rock star and artificial bomb who has a long history with Girlfriend's parents. The mod was coded by Kade and the composer and artist was sock.clip. The mod was praised for being the first mod to add a brand new stage and accompanying lore to the game but criticized its third song, Ballistic, for being infamously difficult and causing players to damage their fingers to the point that the developer of the mod could not beat the song perfectly without a bot for their video showcasing the mod but could beat the other songs included in this mod without a bot.

The team behind V.S Whitty also made another fan made week called Hex who was originally created by YingYang48, it includes every other features the Whitty mod that doesn't have anything to do with the character and week, Hex is a fun loving robot who enjoys playing basketball and is close friends with Whitty. Unlike most characters from Friday Night Funkin', Hex doesn't mind that Boyfriend is dating Girlfriend but instead rap battles against Boyfriend for fun. This mod was praised for it's visuals and having 5 songs in a single week which is more than the current amount of songs in a single week in Friday Night Funkin'.

Another popular series of mods is the "B-Side Remixes" mod by Rozebud and JADS, which is a mod that includes remixes of the songs featured in the game's weeks and recolors of the characters in the game (though there is a version of this mod where the characters have their original colours). This mod was praised for its remixes of the original songs of the game.

Yet another popular series of mods are the SiIvaGunner mods. Every Friday, SiIvaGunner uploads rips of Friday Night Funkin' music, featuring mods of the game, including character changes and new music.

External links

• Newgrounds Page
• itch.io New Page
• itch.io Old Page
• Ludum Dare Page
• Github Page