Week 3: Pico
Week 3, titled Pico, is the third week and fourth level overall in Friday Night Funkin'. It was released on the 11th of December, 2020.
Overview
Opponent
Boyfriend faces off against Pico, the schizophrenic school savior.
Location
Week 3 takes place in Philly (Train).[1] This location is set at night on the rooftop of a building. Behind it is a subway railway with two red train station pillars that suspend overhead electric lines. Behind the railway are the outlines of various city buildings with windows that frequently change color.
Remixed Visuals
During ERECT mode and player character remixes, the stage is set much later at night, with the sky being black and the moon being white instead of yellow; the stars are now blue instead of yellow as well. Characters also receive a change in their hue and the surrounding area around them is darker.
Unique Effects
Subway trains occasionally zoom by from right to left. Whenever this happens, the supporting character's hair will be blown to the side, causing them to temporarily stop bopping their head to the tempo. They will resume once the subway cars finish passing by. This applies to all tracks.
When playing as Pico, Pico will go up against a doppelgänger, and a short in-game cutscene will be played before every song. The cutscene involves either the playable Pico or the opponent Pico putting a cigarette in his mouth and then having the other Pico shoot at it, lighting it, and him taking a quick huff of his cigarette. However, there is a 1/6 chance that either of the Picos ends up accidentally blowing the head off the other. If this happens to the opponent Pico, then the song continues, albeit with the opponent Pico missing all his notes and thus not singing. If this happens to the playable Pico, then the player receives an instant loss and gets taken to the results screen with an accuracy of 0%, no score, and no notes hit.
This cutscene can be skipped by pressing the keys set to advance cutscenes (Z and Enter by default) two times, but only before one of the Picos shoots, at which point the outcome of the cutscene is decided and can't be changed unless the player reenters the level. Skipping the cutscene guarantees that both Picos live.
Tracks
Trivia
- Week 3 is the second level in the game that's named after its opponent, the first being Daddy Dearest and the third being Tankman.
- Week 3 is the first level to have a Newgrounds mascot star as an opponent, the second being Week 7.
- During a live stream, PhantomArcade revealed that Week 3's location is actually set on the rooftop of the same building that the real-life Newgrounds office is based in.[2] In a later stream, he clarified that in-universe, this building is actually the apartment complex in which Boyfriend lives and not a studio.[3]
- Similarly to its real-world counterpart, there is a railway for the subway behind the building that can be seen from the roof. However, the railway is not elevated to the same level as the roof, unlike how it is presented in-game.
- The background buildings seen in-game are also things that aren't seen from the real office building. They were added as inspiration from Alien Hominid, a game originally created in Flash for Newgrounds by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin, and the animation Pico's Unloaded by MindChamber, which both featured similar city buildings in the backgrounds.
- The folder in the game's files containing the assets for Week 3's background is labeled "
philly
," and the stage is called "Philly (Train)" in the Chart Editor; "Philly" is a colloquial name for Philadelphia, the largest city in the state of Pennsylvania. These details were likely intentional given Newgrounds' history with Philadelphia, suggesting that Pico's week takes place there. However, the real-world Newgrounds office building is located in Glenside, which rests around northwest on the outskirts of Philadelphia; as such, the stage's name presumably refers to the greater Philadelphia area.
- Similarly to its real-world counterpart, there is a railway for the subway behind the building that can be seen from the roof. However, the railway is not elevated to the same level as the roof, unlike how it is presented in-game.
- On the 7th of January, 2021, Kawai Sprite uploaded a mashup of Week 3's songs and Travis Scott's song "SICKO MODE" to YouTube and SoundCloud, titled "PICO MODE."[4][5]
- Week 3's development from start to finish was done in under a week.[6]
- In an image posted to PhantomArcade's Twitter 3 days before Week 3's release, a concept image of the week's stage and sprite art is shown, featuring a desaturated pink hatch in the foreground next to Pico.[7] This hatch does not appear in the final release. The concept image also lacks details of cracks on the roof, which are present in the final version.
- The hatch is found in the Flash file for the ERECT version of Week 3, possibly indicating that it was intended to be brought back, but it goes unused once again.
- The hatch was confirmed to be a forgotten asset for Week 3.[8]
- The name of the medal for beating Week 3 is titled "Pico Funny", which references a misheard lyric in Philly Nice.
- According to an earlier GitHub commit, the original name for the medal was going to be "Zeboim Damn Ima Nut", which references a fake lyric included in the art booklet that came included with the Friday Night Funkin' - The Official Soundtrack Vol. 1 CD.[9]