Although utterly primitive, Flash media preserves a nostalgic essence of internet history. They’re fast-paced, offer quick turnovers, and you can easily have a delight with them when you’ve got some spare time to kill.
They’ve also been a nifty way for enthusiastic artists and developers to get their work in front of the world, but unfortunately Flash couldn’t pull through the testament of time.
Despite countless efforts to keep the genre alive, we’ve already lost many legendary pieces, permanently and inevitably.
Several platforms once touted as the ‘Oceans of flash games’ now only have a handful of userbases remaining, with many aspiring creators transitioning to their modern-day alternatives like Itch.io and GitHub to gain the interest of the masses.
However, one particular Indie game is reclaiming its presence on the grounds with quite an unconventional approach. Enter Friday Night Funkin’ – a classic beatboxing rhythm game, followed by a quirky storyline.
You play as a character named ‘Boyfriend’ with a motive to defeat certain rivals in music battles, just so you can date a character named ‘Girlfriend’, who’s a woman resting backstage, giving you the cold shoulder unless you beat her folks in performance.
The only thing that’s better than the game’s premise is the dynamic and supportive fandom it has cultivated throughout the years, which is why it’s available on almost every operating system, except for your small-yet-hyperactive Chromebook.
What a bummer it is, but you need not throw in your towels yet because we’ve figured out some workarounds to play Friday Night Funkin’ on Chromebook that just might work for you as well. So, make sure you keep reading to find out!
Why Doesn’t the Game Work on Chromebook?
Chromebooks are powered by Chrome OS, which is somewhat restrictive and notorious for its unstable Linux development environment. The game requires a package to run that’s only available on Debian testing repositories, and guess what Chromebook offers – Debian stable.
That’s why the container keeps crashing and preventing you from launching the game. Maybe enabling Linux apps on Chrome OS might work, but that too is limited to Chromebooks with Intel or AMD CPU incorporated in it (ARM64 users, stay aside!).
And now when you know the root cause of the problem, let’s discuss its solution as well.
Also, Read: How to Get Minecraft on Chromebook?
Installing Friday Night Funkin’ on Chromebook – All It Takes Is Some Nix Command!
Before proceeding with the instructions, make sure you have at least 6Gb of free disk space on your Chromebook. Also, a reliable internet connection will make the process a lot more lenient as opposed to a slower network. So, make sure you don’t let those bars down and follow the steps below:
Authorize Support for Linux Apps
Since Chromebooks are based on Chrome OS, which is essentially a subset of the Android OS, they both work on the same kernel, i.e., Linux.
You can allow Linux apps to execute on your Chromebook by navigating to ‘Settings’ and turning on support for Linux apps by tapping on its icon in the left-hand-side menu.
Download The Game
Head over to the official itch.io page for Friday Night Funkin’ and download the installation package for Linux operating system. Then, relocate the installation package to the ‘Linux’ folder, located at the path “/mnt/ChromeOS.”
Run Certain Commands
Access the Linux terminal on your Chromebook and either copy-paste or manually type the command given below, followed by hitting the ‘Enter’ key after every command:
- unzip Funkin-Linux-64bit.zip – to extract the required files
- chmod 755 Funkin – to provide appropriate permissions to the executable
- ./Funkin –disable-framerate-limit – executing the file with custom preferences
- sudo apt update – updating the Linux repository
- sudo apt install menulibre – installing ‘menulibre’ package
- menulibre – executing the ‘menulibre’ package
And that’s it! Now you should be able to play the game seamlessly on your Chromebook.
You Can Also Play It Online – Know How!
As you may already know. Friday Night Funkin’ was originally made as a browser-based flash game, which means it could be played straight from a browser with an internet connection.
Fortunately, the developers have done a great job in making gaming relevant for online play, even when the Flash Player is already dead. Here are various online versions of the game you can currently access:
- FNF Week 7 Update – https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/770371
- The Ludum Dare Prototype – https://ninja-muffin24.itch.io/friday-night-funkin
- The Original Version – https://ninja-muffin24.itch.io/friday-night-funkin
You can also check out the original source code of the game on GitHub, just in case you want to compile it on your own, or even make mods for it, but we won’t recommend it though.
Bottom Line
Although Chromebook isn’t an intended device to play games, it certainly ticks all the requirements to be able to run Friday Night Funkin’. We hope you find the workaround discussed in the guide useful for making your spare time more enjoyable with a snort of nostalgia.
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