Video Game / The Tricky Mod

"YOU DO NOT KILL CLOWN!!! CLOWN KILLS YOU!!!"

TRICKY
TRICKY
FUNNY CLOWN

— The Tricky Mod's Friday Night Funkin' traditional Couch Gag

The Tricky Mod, alternatively referred to as Madness: Friday Night Funkin, is a Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod developed by Banbuds, KadeDev, and Rozebud, the latter two being the same ones who worked on Vs Whitty and Friday Night Funkin': B-Side Remixes, respectively.

While the devs of the vanilla game eventually plan on adding Madness Combat's Hank J. Wimbleton — both as an opponent and as a playable character — this mod introduces one of his most persistent and dangerous opponents, Tricky the Clown.

Somewhere in Nevada, The Boyfriend and The Girlfriend are taking a stroll when a familiar stop sign pops up right in front of them, and out from its shadow...

OMFG CLOWN!

Tricky, the Nevadian Champion himself, emerges, twitching violently all the while with no intent on letting our couple pass. In order to escape this hellish monster of a beast, The Boyfriend is forced to combat Tricky in a rap battle. He soon finds himself in one of the toughest fights he's ever been in; with Tricky on the mic empowered by the Portable Improbability Drive, there's no telling what could happen, especially once the Improbability Drive - and eventually, Tricky's wrath - is pushed to its limit...

It can be found on Gamebanana.

If you're looking for another Friday Night Funkin' mod focused on clowns, then go to Friday Night Clownin.

Song List:

1. Improbable Outset
2. Madness
3. Hellclown
4. Expurgation (Bonus Song)

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REALITY COMPROMISED. THE TROPES HAVE BEEN ENGAGED.

• Arc Words: The mod begins with Madness Combat's famous phrase: "Somewhere in Nevada..."
• Ascended Meme: One of the couch gags for the mod is references the "Average X Fan vs Average Y Enjoyer" meme, that some FNF fans have jokingly used to compare this mod with the Vs Whitty mod.
  Average Whitty Fan
  Average Tricky Enjoyer
• Big Damn Heroes: Coincidentally or not, Hank manages to swoop in and save Boyfriend by shooting Tricky from the back of a pickup truck he's riding in. This later takes a turn into Unwanted Assistance, after he insists on picking a fight with Demon Tricky after Boyfriend successfully deterred him, which only pisses him off all over again.
• Bones Do Not Belong There: There's a Funny X-Ray showing the bones of a road sign.
• Boom, Headshot!: Hank performs this on Tricky after the first song. All this does is remove his mask and piss him off.
• Bound and Gagged: Girlfriend spends "Expurgation" tied up for some reason. Not that it bothers her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: While not as overt as some mods out there. "Expurgation" makes the player face Tricky's famous Warning Signs randomly blocking the view of the arrows and one of the Iron-masked skeleton minions pull on Boyfriend's head in his health bar, forcing them to lose health.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The bonus song "Expurgation". The notes come out much faster than they did in the previous songs, the fire arrows from "Hellclown" are replaced with Auditor-themed arrows that will INSTANTLY KO you if you press them, and Tricky's minions will mess with you by either blocking the arrows with stop-signs or moving your health-bar back by force. This song's difficulty is "Unfair" for damn good reasons.
• Button Mashing: Tricky has a habit of just smashing all four arrows at once, particularly during "Madness". Meanwhile, a major feature of the mod's version of the game engine is that you can decide whether pressing notes when there are none counts as a miss or not, ensuring that as long as you hit the notes that do come in, you'll avoid taking damage up until he starts sending harmful fire arrows in "Hellclown".
• The Cameo: The main menu shows off other characters besides the ones currently in the mod. Such as Deimos^* Or rather "Rockmos", sporting his rock form from "DedmosRebuilt.fla", Sanford, MAG Hank and MAG Agent: Torture, to name a few. The Main Menu also has a Variable Mix, so if you have good ears, you can also discern what songs are playing when they are around.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: One of the new mechanics in "Expurgation" has one of Tricky's minions straight-up pull the health bar against you. They're very generous with how much they take away, too.
• Death from Above: Tricky's final form crashes down on BF after transforming. Girlfriend warns him by pointing up, but Boyfriend misinterprets it as a thumbs up.
• Deus ex Machina: Despite having won against Tricky in his Demon form, he's still an all-powerful monster and subverts Duels Decide Everything by just trying to attack BF after taking down Hank. Just before his punch can connect though, something drags Trick away, implied to be IRIS, a corporation who hacked Hex.
• Easter Eggs: One in each version, both related to Among Us and doubling as a Shout-Out:
  • In version 1, on rare occasions, the background for the main/freeplay menu, which normally depicts Boyfriend and Girlfriend looking at a sign of Nevada while Tricky looms over them, poised to attack◊, gets replaced with one where the sign reads "AMOGUS" and Tricky's stop-sign depicts a picture of a crewmate instead of an exclamation point◊.
  • In version 2, a crewmate is one of the possible characters that can appear on the main menu. If a crewmate is present, then he'll prevent you from selecting anything on the main menu, and can be killed by clicking on him in order to access the main menu options once more.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Tricky, befitting a deranged zombie clown who's missing his lips outright. Once he transforms into his demon form, you can safely say that Evil Sounds Deep too.
• Fearless Fool: Boyfriend. What does he do after pissing Tricky off, making him pull out his signpost with malicious intent? He crosses his arms and stares smuggishly. Considering the game over screen has Tricky slice Boyfriend's head off with the same signpost, he was very damn lucky to have Hank passing by.
• Flipping the Bird: Tricky's left pose in "Hellclown" has him flip the Boyfriend off.
• The Gloves Come Off: Tricky wears his mask when he first shows up until the end of "Improbable Outset". By the time "Madness" starts, Tricky has had his mask shot off by Hank, revealing his gaping maw and green skin. This also conveniently signals the point where he stops going easy on you.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Tricky is known for being short-tempered, twitchy, and a sore loser. As a result, his side of the note map involves him smashing multiple notes at the same time, typically all four, and twitching between poses the longer the songs go on, and uses the Improbability Drive to cover up the fact that he's so tensed up and angry he can't even hit them properly.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Tricky's "Left" motion has him point accusatorily at Boyfriend. The same also goes for his "Right" animation in "Expurgation".
• Greater-Scope Villain: IRIS’ symbol briefly flickers on the Auditor's screen after Tricky's monster form is destroyed and Tricky himself is captured. This intrusion manages to confuse even the Auditor, the Big Bad of Madness Combat. He never usually lets up his perpetually-determined glare, so you know something's wrong when even HE doesn't know what's going on.
• Harder Than Hard: The secret chart, "Expurgation", is given the difficulty ranking "Unfair".
• Have a Nice Death: If you die in this mod, the normal game over x-ray is altered to show Boyfriend getting slapped across the face with Tricky's stop sign^note Which, somehow, also has bones., and the normal "crunch" replaced with one of the more common Stock Sound Effects heard in Madness Combat when someone gets crushed in some way.
• Horrifying the Horror: "Expurgation" has implications of this, with Tricky not knowing where he is, and how instead of Hank, Boyfriend is facing him again. He comes to the realization of how this isn't right, and his Improbability Drive is unresponsive, meaning he can't manipulate reality to escape. For what is quite possibly the first time in any Madness Combat related entry, Tricky basically outright panics; throwing out everything he has to defeat Boyfriend, trying in vain to use his spikes to kill him, and is reduced to actually screaming at Boyfriend, asking who he is, where Hank is, and why he can't just kill him.
• Interface Screw: During "Hellclown", Tricky's screams cause the screen to shake badly and be engulfed in static. In addition, he messes with your reflexes by sending out barrages of flaming notes that must not be hit, lest you take damage.
  • Exaggerated in the battle against Tricky and his skeleton cohorts in "Expurgation". The damaging notes are present in this battle too, only here, they are One Hit KOs. In addition, multiples of Tricky's stop sign will wave over parts of your side of the screen, making it harder to see incoming notes, and lastly, a minion of Tricky will periodically grab The Boyfriend's icon on the health bar and pull it back, dealing massive unavoidable damage. Thankfully, this is an Optional Boss.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: If you end up losing to Tricky at any point in the mod, it's shown that Boyfriend outright got bludgeoned to death with the clown's signature stop sign. Which for some reason has bones in it as well.
• Kaizo Trap: After a hellish segment in "Expurgation" after Tricky screams for Hank, the song will return back to the first verse, however a healthbar minion will appear and take over 80% of your health, which will inevitably get Boyfriend balled if you have less than the amount it takes, luckily, the drain is fairly slow and gives you enough time until the song ends.
• Leitmotif: Whenever the beat drops in the instrumental of "Madness", "Calliope" by Cheshyre, Tricky's official theme, can be heard rendered on a piano. Speaking of Calliope thanks to the Main Menu's theme having Variable Mixes, whenever Tricky is the character displayed it will play its own remix of the Main Menu theme but clearly playing its own version of Calliope.
  • The V2 title screen plays a remix of the famous Chicken Dance song, which has played in both Madness Combat 1 and Apotheosis, and on top of that an Ominous Music Box Tune version plays during a game over screen
• Mighty Roar: Tricky does this several times in his giant demon form, but a particularly "mighty" example is right after Boyfriend tries (and miserably fails) to hurt him with the microphone. Tricky lets out a roar so big that it blasts Boyfriend, Girlfriend, and her speakers through the air.
• Monster Clown: Tricky, the star of the mod. Doesn't get much more monstrous than an undying, bloodthirsty zombie clown whose red lips are actually exposed jaw muscles. And that's not even getting into his demon form in "Hellclown".
• Musical Nod: Considering this is a love letter to Madness Combat, taking the form of a very high-polished mod for a rhythm game then this is definitely to be expected.
  • Calliope, Tricky's official theme, can be heard several times in the mod.
  • By extension the Chicken Dance is also heard a few times as well, with a remix of it playing as V2's title screen theme, to even a slowed down musical box version playing on the game over screen.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Tricky hits eight fire arrows at once in the climax to "Madness". If the player had the intention to do that on the other hand Boyfriend would take a whopping 160% HP of damage. Tricky also presses both fire and halo notes as well in his next two songs.
• Mythology Gag: Being clearly made by big fans of the Madness Combat series, it's got quite a lot of it to offer.
  • The V2 title screen has Tricky being a DJ and dancing to a remix of the Chicken Dance song, just like the end of Madness Combat 4: Apotheosis. There's also a octagonal sign on the DJ table that has a large marshmallow plastered on it. Which not only is a reference to Madness Regent, Accelerant but also Madness Combat 3: Avenger and Marshmallow Madness.
  • V2's new main menu takes heavy inspiration from "Project Nexus Classic"^AKA The old flash Project Nexus game having a very similar interface, buttons and fonts. Even the main theme is a remix of PN: Classic's' own menu theme, "Catastrophe"!
  • Tricky's demon form in "Hellclown" is pretty spot on recreation of not only his appearance in the main series, but borrows very big influence from "Madness Regent" and "Madness Accelerant", especially in colors. His "Left" motion even has him giving Boyfriend the finger!
  • Adding onto the "Madness Accelerant" references, after beating the game and getting a "Tiny Desk Tricky" above the "Freeplay" button, clicking on him will annoy him with some text saying different things, sometimes however they will instead meow.
  • The bonus song "Expurgation" has one moment where Tricky and his skeleton goons from MC11 alongside Boyfriend sing notes from "Entry of the Gladiators" (the stock carnival song), the original "Expurgation" from the main flash series is actually a (heavily) remixed version of that said song.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Or in this case, Clown Zombie Demon Humanoid Abomination.
• One-Hit Kill: Hitting a black arrow with a halo on it during "Expurgation" results in an immediate game over.
• One-Winged Angel: Tricky turns into his demon form from Antipathy and Consternation for his final song, "Hellclown". If that wasn't enough, "Expurgation" has him in his skeleton form with the Auditor's halo from the episode the song is named after.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Tricky first emerges, you can see Boyfriend with a nervous look on his face rather than a cocky smile, though he quickly switches to his default expression before the first song starts. Considering he's up against Tricky, he's right to be scared this time.
  • In the final cutscene following "Hellclown", The Auditor's eyes noticeably widen from his usual narrow gaze after his computer monitor cuts out from Boyfriend and Tricky and instead displays the symbol of IRIS.
  • During "Expurgation", Tricky himself is in a complete 180 from his normal chaotic and sadistic behavior, having no idea where he is, asking Boyfriend all sorts of questions like "Where am I?", "Who are you?", "Where's Hank?" and "Why can't I kill?", and trying in vain to use the Improbability Drive to escape his predicament only to find it unresponsive. It's implied that throughout the song, Tricky is actually panicking for the first time in his undead life, and it definitely shows with him hitting you with everything he's got, outright cheating in a ditch-effort to kill BF.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Tricky's a zombie clown empowered by a device called the Improbability Drive, which essentially makes him immortal and allows him to mold reality like it was Play-Doh.
• Playing with Fire: In "Hellclown", Tricky takes the form of a gigantic flaming clown demon. Gameplay and Story Integration hits in the form of his "fire notes", which must not be hit and damage the Boyfriend on contact.
• Post-Victory Collapse: When Tricky vanishes after "Hellclown", Boyfriend gives one last beep before face-planting on the floor.
• Rage Breaking Point: Tricky reaches this after "Madness", with the exact moment he snaps being punctuated with a gunshot and a burst of red energy emitting from his mouth, heralding the further activation of his Portable Improbability Drive and transition into his demon form.
  YOU DO NOT KILL CLOWN
  [Energy Burst]
  CLOWN KILLS YOU!
• Reality Warper: Tricky, thanks to his Portable Improbability Drive, which essentially deems certain events as "improbable" and thus "corrects" reality itself to be in Tricky's favor. He even uses it in both songs, with it happening more often in "Madness"; the screen flashes with transparent, red static whenever Tricky sings a note at random, with words like "MISCALCULATION", "ERROR", and "IMPROBABLE" in big bold red letters popping up.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: The sky's always red in Nevada, Tricky's hometown, and where his challenge takes place.
• Say My Name: During Expurgation, Tricky audibly shrieks Hank's name, presumably out of one part blind rage, and one part to try and establish some sense of familiarity with his surroundings.
• Screaming Warrior: Tricky's vocalizations are raspy, vocoded screams & hisses, and his animations make it clear that he's being as loud as he possibly can when he does them.
• Sequel Hook: Upon clearing "Hellclown", Hank takes on Tricky, only to lose. Just when all hope seems lost, something causes Tricky to vanish. We then cut to the Auditor, watching from his computer, only for it to turn off and flash IRIS' symbol, leaving even him of all people puzzled. We then cut to an unconscious Tricky in a black void, before a door opens up and shines red light on him. Subverted, as the devs have no plans to continue this plotlne.
• Shout-Out:
  • While it's rare, sometimes the main menu will show a Red Crewmate from Among Us instead of BF or any other member of the Madness Combat cast. The main menu theme is even remixed!
  • The appearance of IRIS' symbol is a reference to Vs Hex Mod.
• Skyward Scream: Tricky's up motion during "Hellclown" and the opener to boot, held long enough to give the impression that you have truly made Tricky's rage knob get turned up to eleven.
• Sore Loser: Tricky will use the Improbability Drive to cover up his note misses, signaled by a red static with words such as REDUCE or MISJUDGED. After losing to Boyfriend a second time, Tricky turns into his demon form to kill him.
• Suddenly Voiced: After giving out his initial roar in "Hellclown", Tricky begins the song by saying "YOU SING THROUGH HELL!!" out loud, and in "Expurgation", Tricky screams for Hank near the end of the song before the beat drops one last time.
• Superboss: Exclusively in the mod's Freeplay menu, there's a 4th song called "Expurgation". In it, you fight against Tricky's skeletal form from the episode of the same name. Tricky pulls out all the stops here, throwing stop signs in your face while a minion of his drains away your health. All the while, you'll have to avoid mistakenly hitting the One-Hit Kill notes he sends your way.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In contrast to his usual behavior and expressions, the Boyfriend bops his head to the main menu theme while clearly looks very worried, as if either knowing what he's getting into or a bit pensive on what he got himself into.
• To Be Continued: Version 1 ends with a "To be continued" notice after Tricky explodes.
• Uncommon Time: On top of being full of Interface Screw and flaming notes that damage you when you touch them, "Hellclown" is a chaotic piece from a metrical standpoint, too. Like a certain other clown's battle theme, it changes time signatures constantly. The chart begins in 5/4 before changing to 7/4, 4/4, 7/4 again and finally 9/4 before settling back into 5/4. It finally ends with an outro in 7/4.
• Variable Mix: The main menu's music is not only a remix of Project Nexus' "Catastrophe". It also changes slightly based on whoever is displayed on the menu, typically from an animation they took a primary role in or at least where they came from.
  • Tricky himself adds the melody of "Calliope", from "Avenger" to the track.
  • Boyfriend adds the original game's near-iconic "Go, man, go!" crowd chant featured in the base game's menu music.
  • MAG Hank adds a bit from "MC9", the soundtack to "Aggregation".
  • Jesus adds a refrain from "MC8", the soundtrack to "Inundation".
  • MAG Agent: Torture adds bits from "Giant", the soundtrack to "Incident:011A".
  • The Auditor adds a motif from "MC10", the soundtrack to "Abrogation".
  • Deimos adds a bit from "Eidolon Step", the soundtrack to "DedmosRebuilt.fla" which was also where his current form displayed comes from.
  • Though Sanford's version has caused confusion among the players, it is believed that his motif is from "Madness 5 5", the soundtrack to "Madness Combat 5.5", the first episode in the series where he has a major role.
  • The Crewmate adds the main tune of the "Among Us Trap Remix" to the track.
• Villainous Breakdown: Tricky undergoes this during the course of "Expurgation", realizing that he isn't losing just because he's failing to kill the Boyfriend; He's losing because something won't let him.
• Wham Shot:
  • During a segment near the end of "Madness", Tricky's arrows have his demon form's aura surrounding them. These later appear on your side during "Hellclown", dealing a hefty amount of damage if you hit them.
  • During the final cutscene, IRIS' symbol briefly appears on the Auditor's monitor.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Tricky, who has murdered Hank, Jebus, and turned reality into his own personal playground, decides to challenge Boyfriend into a rap battle instead of just crushing him to death. Justified since Tricky's M.O is toying with his victims by giving them the chance to fight back, and that as of Version 2, Tricky does attempt to assassinate Boyfriend before being interrupted by Hank. Lampshaded in "Expurgation", where one of the red messages periodically flashing on Tricky's side of the screen is "WHY CAN'T I KILL?"
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: The general feeling of Tricky's response to Boyfriend managing get by his flaming arrows in "Hellclown" without losing, as signified by him outright screaming in exasperated rage.

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