Video Game / Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle is an isometric puzzle game based on the Friday the 13th franchise, released by Blue Wizard Digital with gameplay similar to their previous title, Slayaway Camp.

A less serious, but only slightly less gruesome, take on the franchise, the masked slasher Jason Voorhees has been tasked by the severed head of his mother to deliver swift vengeance on the masses for killing the two of them. After finishing off the last of the teenagers trespassing at Camp Crystal Lake, however, things take a turn for the unexpected as the police arrive and manage to arrest Jason. From there, the murderous revenant proceeds to go on a long, bizarre trip across the planet and across the years as he adds more and more people to his body count.

The game and its DLC were delisted from digital stores on January 23, 2023 due to expiring licenses.

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle provides examples of:

• Adjustable Censorship: Right before Jason's first kill of the game, you're asked if you want a PG rating, or R rating. The R rating will result in the typical blood and dismemberment you'd expect from a Friday the 13th game. The PG rating disables some of the randomly-played animations for killing, and causes bodies to explode into dust and bones in the ones that remain.
• Apocalypse How: A Class 2 event is the backdrop for Episode 7, where Jason explores and kills his way through a post-apocalyptic Earth. A Class 3A event happens after completing the DLC level Jurassic Jason. After Jason kills the last of the cavepeople, it cuts back to the start of the first episode, where the campers and Jason himself suddenly distort and disappear, implying the death of the human race thanks to a time-travelling Jason Voorhees.
• Bling of War: There are several gold weapons available as rare drops.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: A gameplay mechanic. Some puzzles can only be solved by scaring people into place and avoiding killing them until after certain other actions have been taken.
• Chainsaw Good: One of the weapons Jason can get is a chainsaw. So one can finally do a Hockey Mask and Chainsaw trope with the man himself.
• Cool Mask: In addition to his iconic hockey mask, Jason wears several others in different costumes for the different chapters, including a hockey and gask mask combination.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Well this is Friday the 13th so it's to be expected. Of particular note is the ending cutscene of Episode 5, where Jason gives a girl a Sand Necktie (by punching her into the ground) and then just walks away, letting the high tide kill her.
• Death by Cameo:
  • James and Chelsea from Dead Meat are possible victims for Jason to kill. For added irony one can use the Golden Chainsaw if it is unlocked.
  • Another cameo is Kyle from Never Hike Alone, now Jason actually manages to kill him unlike in the film.
• Denser and Wackier: The Friday the 13th films were never exactly grounded in reality, but the game keeps a notably comedic tone throughout.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Allowing any cats to come to harm is a mark of failure. Jason's a good boy, after all. He would never hurt innocent animals.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: Various weapons available to Jason are gardening equipment repurposed for creating corpses rather then tending plants and the like.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: You can choose to have Jason forgo any weapon and just use his fists, his no less deadly with his bare hands.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: If a character runs over a hole, it takes them a moment to realize it's there and fall in.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: A few kill animations has Jason hacking his victims horizontally in half.
• Katanas Are Just Better: One of the unlockable weapons is a katana.
• Improvised Weapon: Jason's vast arsenal includes traditional weapons, as well as his more famous habit of just using whatever's laying around, including tea kettles, flashlights, hockey sticks, and someone else's purse.
• Lemony Narrator: The booming voice that declares you've reached the last victim of the puzzle starts out with the expected FINAL GIRL and FINAL BOY. However, as the maps move on, they proceed to get more descriptive, with FINAL NERD, FINAL JOCK. Occasionally, they'll even run out of ideas mid-phrase.
  FINAL... STEREOTYPE
• Loot Boxes: Awarded for every rank up, for trading in three undesired weapons, or for buying them with money.
• Machete Mayhem: Well what would Jason be without his trademark Machete?
• Mythology Gag: As expected from any licensed game, there are multiple nods to the franchise's various entries.
  • The roster of unlockable (level or paid) Jasons include: Part 6 Jason, Uber Jason, Part 2 Jason, Retro Jason and Part 3 Jason. Additionally, the Flaming Jason might be a nod to Savini Jason from Friday the 13th: The Game.
  • Another unlockable Jason added later on in a content update is the Jason from Never Hike Alone.
  • One of the episodes revolves around Jason sneaking onto a boat heading to New York. Only 5 of the 13 levels take place in Manhattan, with Pamela pointing out that "We went to New York, but it seems like we spent all our time on this silly boat."
• Offscreen Teleportation: Parodied in one of the kill animations. Jason raises his weapon up to swing it down onto the victim, who runs away... and immediately break their neck against Jason, who has now ended up directly in their path, still preparing to strike.
• Off with His Head!: Quite a few of the kill animations involve decapitation, either by sharp or blunt instruments.
• Play Every Day: There is a "Daily Death" puzzle mode.
• Police Are Useless: If you're thinking that Jason will easily take care of law enforcement without any resistance well, you would be wrong. Because this trope is either downplayed or outright averted hard.
  • The police can and will take down Jason single-handedly if he approaches them from the wrong angle. However, that's only one of four possible directions, and with the other three, they're as vulnerable as anybody else.
  • Averted in-story. The events of chapter 2 take place because the police were able to arrest Jason, and it's only because he's Jason freakin' Voorhes that he doesn't end up being executed.
  • Also averted with the SWAT team; not only can they gun Jason down from across the map, attempting to attack them while the lights are on will always see them taking down Jason.
  • Averted one final time with certain levels, which give the player a finite number of turns to make all their kills before the police arrive. If the player takes too many turns, it's game over.
• Sand Necktie: Jason gives one to one beach goer by punching her into the ground and then leaves her to let the high tide do the rest.
• Shout-Out:
  • A lot of the descriptions for the Different Jason Skins have different references to different media.
    • Supermax Jason: "He is not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with him."
    • Apocalypse Jason: "His world is fire and blood. Witness Him!"
    • Medieval Jason: "The Once and Future King... of Killing!"
    • Retro Jason: "You and your friends are dead. Game Over."
    • Toxic Jason: "This toxic avenger is ready to take on all campers."
  • Parts of "Run For Your Life" are taken from "Dream Warriors".
• Sinister Scythe: Jason may use a scythe if he receives one from a lootbox.
• Suddenly Voiced: Jason, albeit he merely takes a step up from The Speechless to The Quiet One, and even then it's only through text. While he does get the occasional line of dialogue in the form of buttons to dismiss his mother's text boxes, he barely goes above two words, and they're all usually some variant on "Thanks mom." or "Okay ma."
• Super Drowning Skills: Both Jason and the campers; water doesn't agree with either of them. At least it's somewhat justified with Jason, and strangely enough the only time one of the later is shown being capable of swimming, it ends up in their death.. from the former!
• Temporary Online Content: The Steam version only had the first eight episodes for free. After the game's delisting, players without the last four paid DLC episodes cannot legitimately get the Steam achievements for beating those.
• Time Skip: A fair bit of time passes between each chapter. The penultimate and final levels of the base game involve Jason's adventures in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and waking up after his nanotech upgrade into Uber Jason
• Wing Ding Eyes: Sometimes victims have Xs for eyes to show that they're dead.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Some of the kill animations involve Jason's fists has him pull some wrestling moves, such as a back breaker or a tombstone pile driver.

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