Friday Night Funkin'

 Beep bo bop

Rhythm action and me have never seen eye-to-eye for a lot of my life. Don't get me wrong, it's always been around me, I'm not a totally uncultured swine, I just never took to it like a lot of others from my generation did. At parties or in arcades there'd be the rhythm game of the hour, but I was always the seeker of those more traditional gameplay experiences, the one's where I felt like I was in control of my own actions and not, if you'll pardon the expression, drumming to another's beat. But that's not to say I don't respect those who are invested in the rhythm action scene, and sometimes I'll even give the games a shot myself for prosperities sake. (often to pathetic performances on my end) And yet it was my inherit disinterest for any and everything related to this world which had me initially sleeping on one of the most interesting grass routes indie games being made in the current year; Friday Night Funkin'.

Exploding in popularity since it's creation and subsequent release onto the Internet following a Game Jam, Friday Night Funkin' has grown from what has been retroactively described as a 'tech demo' into a promising potential industry disruptor and I find the whole thing fascinating. The game itself is simply an action-response rhythm action game that task players with matching notes on the screen in order to 'survive' sets of songs. (or weeks) It's conceived in a manner reminiscent of PaRappa the Rapper and, given it was made by four Newgrounds developers, also invokes fond memories of the flash era of gaming. (RIP) It's also free to play. Obviously, the game was a Game Jam product, but with the actual decent quality of the original 'demo' and the fact it's available for free to literally anyone with a browser, I'd say it's pretty deserving for this game to get the attention it got.

But this is game that did more than just 'get attention'. It showed up all over Youtube, Twitch and Tiktok, pretty much becoming a pop culture icon over the space of 3 months or so. The main characters of Boyfriend, Girlfriend and all the supporting cast are now recognisable outside of the crowd who directly play the game. The Week 4 song M.I.L.F developed memehood for it's intimidating sounding drop which honestly isn't really as bad as it looks. (unless you're playing on hard; in which case it absolutely is) Modders have come to the scene to throw in their own sprites or songs. (My favourite being the Jojo mods, of course) Positive impressions have flooded the Newgrounds hoster site and demands mounted to make the game ever more complete. As of the writing of this blog the game is sitting at 7 weeks of gameplay with 3 songs for every week, littered with cameo appearances from Newgrounds icons that are pretty darn nostalgic to see given how influential this platform was to the development of modern internet culture. And what's more; it's really, really fun.

So I may suck at rhythm action games, and Friday Night Funkin' ain't no walk in the park, but with how pick-up-and-play accessible it is, with such a charming presentation and genuinely catchy and great beats in there, I've become a bit of a fan. I still fundamentally lack the hand-eye-coordination to seriously take on the game at it's current toughest difficulty (I only just managed to limp past week 1 on hard) but there's still a lot for me to take away from this game as a casual. In particular I love the individual stages that each have their own quirks, Pico's stage having a city of lights that thump different colours with the beat, Senpai's stage having this great pixel-style redesign over the entire game that infects both interface and the deathscreen, Mommy Mearest's troop of in-sync dancing demons who just look to be having the times of their lives; it all speaks to the flair of the artists who came together with the passion and talent breath life into this little simple idea for a game.

Yet what we have right now is not the end of the game, not by a longshot; and in fact it seems that the Friday Night Funkin' team has frankly ambitious plans for where they want to take this idea next. Not content with their fifteen minutes, the team have expressed that they're currently looking at this project as their dream game and have plans to expand it into a full fledged title. The Kickstarter has already been set-up for 'Friday Night Funkin': The Full Ass Game' which pretty much details everything you'd need to know about their manifesto, but I'll touch on it anyway because I find this all frightfully exciting. The team describe themselves as artists, not 'suits' or 'posers'. (Woah, calm down there with the outdated 2000's lingo; Chloe Price) The want to get the whole pie and eat it too; detailing desires to completely improve every aspect of the game, expand on what exists considerably and keep merch sales going. (Cause it's all about that merchandising dollars, oh yeah!)

And what does a retail version of Friday Night Funkin' look like? Well, apparently it's an eye-watering 20 weeks (or 60 songs) of narrative-driven cartoon action-rhythm mayhem. And yes, I said 'Narrative Driven'. Because besides from being a celebration crossover event for what I'm sure will amount to all the biggest elements from Newgrounds, Friday Night Funkin' is telling the story of protagonist Boyfriend as he seems to be working his way through obstacles between his relationship with Girlfriend. (And that's simplifying the story by factors, mind you; I haven't even mentioned the fact that her parents are demons or that she's apparently an in-universe videogame character) The full game will have cutscenes to convey that story, some of which have already started to appear in this demo version (in weeks 6 and 7) and are already just so much fun and well made. (And a reminder of how this is a game not under the prevision of any stuffy studios. Don't think any of them would sign off on Tankman calling the two protagonists the C-word) There's also promises for local co-op, mod support, leaderboards, guest musicians and collaborations. All in all, this is looking like almost too much for a team of... four!? (To be clear, that's four who made the prototype. They've had a lot of help from about the place and I'm sure with a successful kickstart they'll start hiring an actual team)

Of course, we're talking about the promises of Kickstarter from a small project that launched out of nowhere last year which originally seemed more of just a tribute to action-rhythm games of old. One can't help but scratch and wonder just how in the hell this turned into a huge concept vision of a grand revival to action rhythm as we know it. (Not that action rhythm was ever 'dead', mind you. It just hasn't quite returned to the spotlight it once had) My organic learned defence algorithms tell me to instantly put my guard up for what looks too good to be true, but my damn fallible human heart wants to cheer on these independent artists for getting the chance to make their dream reality. Not many in the industry can say they've launched an entire successful game without the stifling grasp of a publisher around their throats, and I certainly wish all the support for any developers who want to. Then again, perhaps I'm internally debating over nothing as this Kickstarter might not even be reached. I mean they were after $60,000! That's a lot of dough! Let's look and see where they're- $1.5 Million as of the writing of this blog. Good lord.

So I guess this is happening. These independent creators get to sit down and show the world what they can do spurred on by the hopes, dreams (and wallets) of over 40,000 fans. And this is still with 18 days of kickstarting left to go, they've nearly cleared all the 'sensible' stretch goals (If you call the one which would require them to remix every single song in the game 'sensible') and are onto the stupid stretch goals that I'm sure someone is feeling sorry about writing. PS1 port developed and sold at a loss? I guess that kinda makes sense (not really). A high-quality entirely Sakuga anime-themed week? That sounds like an animation nightmare, why inflict that upon yourselves? Over here I'm just intensely curious about what form this game will end up in once complete, and if it's to the standard of what's already present (or to the higher standard they've actually promised) then despite my lack of rhythm I am totally all aboard for picking up this game when it eventually comes out. Assuming that the team doesn't just take the insane amount of funding headed their way and runs. (They wouldn't do that... right?)