Friday Night Funkin' (Ludum Dare Prototype)
This page is about the oldest version of Friday Night Funkin'. For the current build, see Friday Night Funkin'.
“Uh oh! Your tryin to kiss ur hot girlfriend, but her MEAN and EVIL dad is trying to KILL you! He's an ex-rockstar, the only way to get to his heart? The power of music...
Decided to make a rhythm game before the theme, and music is slightly adjacent to looping right? Alright you get it I ain't rollin with the theme this time around, I just wanted an excuse to make a cool game over the weekend.”
― itch.io description
Friday Night Funkin' (Ludum Dare Prototype) (version number 0.1.0) is the first and original build of Friday Night Funkin', originally made for Ludum Dare 47, a game jam event hosted in October of 2020. It was programmed by ninjamuffin99 with a soundtrack by Kawai Sprite and artwork by PhantomArcade and evilsk8r. It was released on the 5th of October, 2020, and is still playable on its itch.io page. This version can also be downloaded and run on Windows and macOS.
The premise of the game is the same as in later builds: the player plays as the main character, Boyfriend, who is trying to get approval to date Girlfriend from Daddy Dearest, who greatly disapproves of their relationship. The father challenges Boyfriend to a rap battle in order to prove himself worthy of dating his daughter, with the intent of killing him.
Version Differences
Start Screen
The prototype has a very simple start screen of the brick wall background from the tracks in the game with the old Friday Night Funkin' logo made by evilsk8r going up and down. The menu theme, titled Start Screen (Itch.io Build), plays once, leaving the start screen silent after it finishes until the player presses the Enter key to start. Entering plays the ending to the start screen theme, which gets cut off about halfway before transitioning into the game.
The start screen would receive a massive overhaul with the Newgrounds release, with an introduction sequence with opening credits, an updated logo, a new menu theme, and a main menu screen with different options after pressing Enter.
Gameplay
Players play as Boyfriend, the protagonist, who is facing off against Daddy Dearest, the antagonist, in a singing battle. Girlfriend, Daddy Dearest's daughter and Boyfriend's romantic partner, watches the battle between them on a dark blue-magenta winners' podium resembling stairs while bopping her head to the song. The battle takes place on a stage.
The theme of Ludum Dare 47, Stuck in a Loop, is somewhat apparent with the gameplay: the opponent always starts the song first, hitting a pattern of notes. The player must then repeat the same set of notes. This continues until the end of the track.
The first track is Bopeebo. Given its simplicity, the track eases players in and allows them to get a grasp of the game's controls and its gameplay loop. The track doesn't seem to have been mapped in its entirety, as a portion near the end is empty, leaving players to wait until the next track starts. During the track, Boyfriend performs his V-sign pose at the end of his set of notes.
The second and final track is Fresh. This track serves to challenge players a bit more, with denser sets of notes being thrown their way. This track was fully mapped. During the track, Boyfriend also performs his V-sign pose, but it is a lot buggier in execution since it can sometimes play too early and get cut off by another note.
After the second track is complete, players are sent back to the start screen.
At the time, weeks were not yet a feature of the game, and there were only two tracks for the game. Neither Dadbattle nor Tutorial had been added yet. Girlfriend, as stated earlier, sat on a very basic winners' podium but would later sit on speakers after fans interpreted the podium as speakers in fanart and messages, which the developers found to be a great concept.[1][2] The background for those tracks remains untouched in current builds. Boyfriend's V-sign pose would be removed from Fresh in the Newgrounds demo release, leaving Bopeebo as the only track to have him perform that pose up until the Week 7 update, which would later add it to Tutorial as well.
Game Over Screen
Upon losing, a transition leads to a black screen with the word "Lose..." crashing down and the word "Restart?" very slowly floating up and down. The vocals stop playing, and the track's instrumental continuously plays on a loop. Players can restart the track by pressing the Enter key.
With the Newgrounds release, the Game Over screen would be drastically changed, with the screen being replaced with Boyfriend having his skeleton suddenly appear visible with cracks all over and two pulsating blue spheres located around his groin. After unceremoniously dropping his microphone, his brain appears as well, shaped as the word "retry," while the Game Over music plays. His brain and blue balls pulse to the music, and his hands continuously twitch. Players can either retry, which plays a short animation of his brain flashing, or quit and go back into the menu.
Pause Screen
The prototype does not have a pause screen or an in-game menu of any kind. The only way to pause the game is to click out of the game's window.
A pause menu with options and its own music track were added to the Newgrounds demo in version 0.2.2.
Controls
The controls function the same as they do in the current builds of the game: use the WASD or arrow keys to hit the notes. As the prototype lacks an Options menu, the controls cannot be changed. Volume controls are also present: use the - and + keys to lower or raise the volume, and use 0 to mute the game.
The key for instantly triggering a Game Over (R) was not in the game until the Newgrounds release.
Health Bar
The health bar functions the same way as it does in the current builds of the game. However, penalties for missing notes are much harsher comparatively, with health loss being almost double compared to now. Boyfriend’s character icon on the health bar would remain the same until the Week 4 update replaced it with one that better matched his in-game appearance.
Boyfriend's old character icon now appears as a small Easter egg. During a track, pressing the 9 key will replace Boyfriend's icon on the health bar with the old one.
Combo
Combos function differently in the prototype. After a set of notes, a message appears next to the word "combo," along with a set of numbers representing the number of notes hit. This also means that hold notes are tracked differently, as they are counted as multiple notes rather than a single note like they are in current builds.
The Newgrounds release would change it to instead track the number of times players hit notes without missing. Hold notes were changed to only be counted as a single note. However, much like it was before, it is just an aesthetic feature. The combo message currently remains unused.
Score
The prototype of the game does not have any sort of traditional score counter. This feature was added some time after the Newgrounds release of the game. The messages from the combo system (Sick!!, Good!, Bad, Shit) would be repurposed as a visual for players to tell how well they hit notes, with the positive messages granting a high number of points and the negative ones granting a low number of points.
Gallery
The logo of the Ludum Dare prototype.
Title screen.
Gameplay of the Ludum Dare build. (Bopeebo)
Gameplay of the Ludum Dare build. (Fresh)
Game Over in the Ludum Dare build.
Notes
- Many of the assets from the prototype that have now gone unused can be found on the Old/Unused Assets page.