Week 6: Hating Simulator

Week 6, titled Hating Simulator ft. moawling, is the sixth level in Friday Night Funkin'. It was released on the 2^nd of February, 2021.

Overview

Opponents

Boyfriend faces off against Senpai, the dreamy dating sim love interest. Later, Boyfriend also faces off against Spirit, a tortured soul left to suffer by Daddy Dearest.

Location

The true location of this battle is inside an old pixel-styled dating sim video game that Girlfriend plays.

Week 6 takes place at "The School." This location is set during the day on a large stone path leading towards a high school with a large clock and its own water tower. Petals from the cherry blossom trees constantly float down. Several girls with heart eyes in blue Japanese school uniforms watch the rap battle closely in the background in enamored poses.

In the second track, the location undergoes a slight tonal shift as the girls in the background now appear blank-eyed and with a shocked expression on their faces. They also bounce slightly slower than before.

In the third track, the location undergoes a nightmarish shift as the sky and school grounds become enveloped in darkness, the cherry blossom trees appear dead and petalless, and the spectating girls are now gone. The once-pristine school and pathway now appear broken, with shattered windows and chipped or missing tiles. The screen becomes wavy, causing everything in the background to appear slightly distorted.

Unique Effects

Boyfriend and Girlfriend both have different appearances to fit the week's pixel art style. This style change also alters many other visual elements, such as the text, arrows (as well as one of their colors), and character icons.

The Game Over screen, music, and related sound effects are changed to better fit the week's style as well. Boyfriend's skeleton retains the pixelated appearance, the sound effects are lower quality, and the Game Over music is redone in the style of chiptune.

Tracks

Cutscene Tracks

Altered Tracks

Game Over (Pixelday)

Trivia

The name of this week is a reference to the dating sim video game genre, which the week is themed after.
- The game files for Week 6 are labeled "weeb," and most of the assets related to the location have "weeb" in their titles, likely poking fun at the dating sim style.
The pixel art for Week 6 was done by moawling, who is credited in the week's title.
Week 6 was created to celebrate Pixel Day, a Newgrounds holiday that started in 2016.^[1] The first teaser for Week 6 was shown in a Tweet by the official Newgrounds Twitter account.^[2]
Week 6 is the first week to:
- Use an entirely different art style, being pixel art.
- Alter the appearance of the UI, such as the arrows and bar icons.
- Alter the color scheme of the arrow notes (right arrow changed from red to orange).
- Introduce cutscenes for each track before the battle.
- Include dialogue between characters.
- Alter the appearance of the location for every track.
- Alter the appearance of the opponent for every track.
- Alter the "Ready? Set!? Go!" command before the song, instead saying, "Ready? Set!? Date!" The voice lines for the command are now done in a lower quality/bitcrushed style and have a more feminine voice.
The reason for the change in note colors in this week is that moawling designed the week's palettes with colorblind accessibility in mind.^[3]
Much of Week 6, such as its gameplay with the new art style, track names, and sprites were leaked ahead of its intended release.
There used to be a glitch in Week 6 where if the player presses the R key on their keyboard (a key that causes an instant Game Over) any time during cutscenes in Story Mode, the cutscene and its music will freeze while the sounds of Boyfriend's skeleton cracking and the microphone dropping play. However, the Game Over music will not play afterwards, and the game will crash, leaving players forced to restart the game to play it again. This was fixed in the Week 7 update, where causing a Game Over will make it so that retrying will skip the cutscene upon return.
- The cutscene in Thorns, while also affected, will still play the sounds created from Senpai dying due to them being sound effects. This was partially fixed in the Week 7 update. It is still possible to receive a Game Over during the death cutscene; the sounds of Senpai dying still play, and the white screen transition will occur over the Game Over screen. However, players can simply retry, and the cutscene will be skipped.
There used to be a bug where if a player presses some keys too quickly near the beginning of the cutscenes, it will freeze while the music is still playing. This was fixed in version 0.2.7.1.
Thorns previously did not use the pixel art-style death animation and the chiptune version of the Game Over music, unlike the other two tracks of Week 6. The regular death animation and Game Over music would play instead. This was fixed in version 0.2.7.1.
All character icons for this week lack "danger" versions. This extends not only to the opponents but to Boyfriend as well.
Week 6 is currently the holder of the shortest time between released weeks. Week 5 was released on the 20^th of January while Week 6 was released on the 2^nd of February, meaning there was only a 13-day gap between releases.
Girlfriend will not briefly cry when the player breaks a +5 combo streak. This is due to a lack of an animation for it.
The console seen on Senpai's Story Mode character render resembles a PlayStation, and its controller resembles the DualShock controllers.
In the game files, the background girls in Senpai and Roses are labeled "bgFreaks."
The school in the background was originally meant to have a much fancier design compared to the one in the final game.^[4]
Week 6 is the third week to have multiple opponents, the first being Week 2 and the second being Week 5.
As shown in a Tweet by PhantomArcade, one of the references used for the aesthetic of Week 6 as well as the song Senpai is from the 1994 Japanese dating sim Tokimeki Memorial.^[5]
A pixel art version of Boyfriend's V-sign pose was created, but it ultimately went unused due to none of the songs in the week requiring it. As such, it was not included in Boyfriend's final sprite sheet. It can only be found in an assets file released by moawling that can be downloaded through Gumroad.^[6]
There is a minor bug where pressing the 9 key to change Boyfriend's icon from his alternate icon back to the pixel one will result in his regular icon appearing instead. The only way to fix this is to restart the song or exit it and go back.
The original idea for Week 6 was to have the characters be inside a Dragon Quest-esque game.^[7] Later, it was decided to be a dating sim instead, to fit the romance theme fully.

Gallery

Senpai, along with pixelized versions of Boyfriend and Girlfriend.
Boyfriend as he appears in Week 6.
Boyfriend's cutscene portrait.
Boyfriend's singing animations.
Boyfriend's miss poses.
Boyfriend's game over sprite.
Boyfriend's full game over animation.
Boyfriend's retry sprite.
Boyfriend's retry animation.
Senpai's idle animation in his eponymous song.
Senpai's singing animations during his eponymous song.
Senpai's idle animation in Roses.
Senpai's singing animations during Roses.
Senpai's cutscene portrait before his eponymous song.
Senpai's cutscene portrait before Roses.
Senpai's static idle pose (Senpai).
Senpai's static idle pose (Roses).
Senpai’s sprite sheet.
Senpai's blank dialogue box.
Senpai’s death assets.
Senpai's portrait assets in Week 6 during his eponymous song.
Senpai's portrait assets in Week 6 during Roses.
Spirit's idle animation.
Spirit's static idle pose.
Spirit's singing animations.
Spirit's left note animation.
Spirit's down note animation.
Spirit's up note animation.
Spirit's right note animation.
Spirit's sprite sheet.
Spirit's portrait during the cutscene in Thorns. In-game, he covers a blackened silhouette of Senpai's headshot.
"Direct contact with real humans, after being trapped in here for so long..."
Gameplay of the first song, Senpai.
Gameplay of the second song, Roses.
Gameplay of the third song, Thorns.
Week 6's Game Over screen.
Spirit busting out of Senpai's face during the cutscene for Thorns, leading to his death.
Ditto but without background.
Text box used in the cutscenes for Senpai and Roses.
Animation of the Background Freaks during Senpai.
Background Freaks in Senpai.
Background Freaks in Roses.
The original appearance of this week's background with a different school design.
Unused sprite for Boyfriend's V-sign pose.
The sky. (Senpai and Roses)
School stone path. (Senpai and Roses)
The school. (Senpai and Roses)
Trees assets. (Senpai and Roses)
Parts of the trees. (Senpai and Roses)
Tree petals assets. (Senpai and Roses)
The tree petals, animated.
School background assets. (Thorns)
The school. (Thorns)
School stone path. (Thorns)
First part of the unfinished Week 6 beginning cutscene, featuring the video game console. This cutscene may appear in the full game.
Second part of the cutscene, featuring Boyfriend.
Third part of the cutscene, featuring Girlfriend.
Fourth part of the cutscene, featuring both Boyfriend and Girlfriend falling and a spiral effect representing their being transported into the game.
The Week 6 album cover.