How to Play Friday Night Funkin’ – The Indie Rhythm Battler Sensation

Friday Night Funkin’s Kickstarter was successfully backed and the “Full Ass Version” as it’s called in the Kickstarter campaign is on the way to PC, mobile, and possibly more if additional stretch goals are met. If the campaign hits $3,000,000 then they’ll sell physical copies of a PlayStation 1 version. I’ve never wanted anything so badly. 

This expanded full version will include 20 new songs, a bigger story, additional gameplay mechanics, cutscenes, local two player (without needing to use a mod), online leaderboards, better mod support, and even a custom character creator. This will take an already great game and make it even better but there’s no reason to wait for the full release; there are a few ways to play the current release while you wait! 

How to Play Friday Night Funkin’ – The Indie Rhythm Battler Sensation 

Friday Night Funkin’ is a rhythm-based battler with a fun premise. You play as Boyfriend and you want to kiss your girlfriend but her Dad is an evil vampire or something. Regardless of what he is, you need to sing against him by successfully hitting the right keys.

After the bubble-gum pop tutorial and the intense songs against the Dad, Boyfriend moves onto other stages. The story isn’t super present, but it is fun and interesting. It gets as weird and as dark as games like Undertale, which clashes with the absolute bops of this game in the absolute best way. 

There’s multiple difficulty options and I’d recommend starting off on Easy because it gets pretty hard fast. The first few songs aren’t too rough but it picks up fast once it does. I think you’re probably meant to fail and improve in the first few areas before moving on.

There’s also a Free Play mode to use if you want to practice or just jump around. I struggled with some songs in the middle and wanted to experience later songs so I jumped ahead with Free Play. Later I came back and had the necessary skills to successfully complete the songs I skipped. 

Where and How to Download Friday Night Funkin’

Friday Night Funkin’ has very low system requirements. If you’re reading this on a computer then you can pretty much run it without any problems, but you can also play it in your browser.

You can download the game for free on itch.io, with an option to donate if you feel inclined, and you can also play it in-browser on Newgrounds or itch.io. The Newgrounds version is the most up to date.

There’s some timed exclusivity with the Newgrounds version, which is likely due to financial support from Newgrounds so don’t let that bother you. Exclusivity on the indie side helps make the lives of developers easier and can make their games better! 

Once you download the game or boot it up in-browser, all you need to do is smash Start on the Main Menu and you’re ready to jam. The game can be played a few different ways; it all just depends on what you prefer for a funkin’ good time. 

You can use a controller, keyboard, or a Dance Dance Revolution style dance-pad. I don’t have a dance pad laying around but am going to try to get one online after learning there’s a dance-pad section on itch.io! It’d already be worth having one for this game alone but I had no idea there was a dance-pad section in the indie scene.

Indie games are rad! 

I played with a controller and with a keyboard. The controller worked best for me but I think that’s just because I do most of my gaming on console. Playing on keyboard works just fine. You just use the Arrow keys or WASD.

The controls can be customized too, if you’d prefer using some different keys. If a controller is your preference then you just need a controller your PC recognizes and the game will automatically let you use it. I personally used an Xbox One controller but I imagine other controllers will work just as good.

Friday Night Funkin’ isn’t going anywhere and I’m hoping we see a rhythm game revolution from its popularity, like we saw with other genres from games like Minecraft, Hades, Dead Cells, and Hollow Knight.

This game is free unless you want to donate (which you should!) so follow our links and check this game out. The music will get stuck in your ears just like it did for me, and I promise it’s a good problem to have.