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 rhythm game. Developed by a team of four Newgrounds users, the game has a play style that is close to 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

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

Gameplay Image of Friday Night Funkin

Gameplay of Friday Night Funkin'

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. Later songs introduce more complicated patterns, with sometimes the player's pattern varying from the opponent's or both singers engaging in a duet song. 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. The player wins if their bar survives for the entire song.

For each week, the player has the option to select one of three difficulties: Easy, Medium, and Hard. As the 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

Week 1

Week 1 (called "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 (called "Spooky Month") features the songs "South" and "Spookeez". As Pump and Skid celebrate Spooky Month, 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 3

Week 3 (called "Pico") features the songs "Pico", "Philly Nice", 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 (called "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.

Week 5

Week 5 (called "Red Snow") features the songs "Cocoa", "Eggnog", and "Winter Horrorland". Week 5 takes place in a shopping mall, around 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.

Week 6

Week 6 (called "Hating Simulator") features the songs "Senpai", "Roses", and "Thorns". Boyfriend and Girlfriend are sucked into Hating Simulator, a fictional PlayStation dating simulator, and are forced to battle against a character presumably named "Senpai".

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 47, posting a demo online with Week 1 with only two songs. 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 a new title screen and song accompanying it, a menu, freeplay and story mode, a tutorial, an updated game over screen, a pause menu, a debug mode, the "Dad Battle" song in Week 1, updated Boyfriend icons, and 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. In April 2021, they announced plans to launch a Kickstarter project later in the month, to turn the demo into a full game.

Its soundtrack, by composer Kawai Sprite, has been made available for free on Bandcamp and Spotify.

External links

• Official website(game on itch.io)
• Friday Night Funkin' on GitHub