Tricky the Clown

Warnings: Content Warning

Notices: Golden Throne, Large Page, Discontinued Mod, Unfinished Page.

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING ⚠️

This article contains potentially sensitive content that may be discomforting or upsetting to certain users. Viewer discretion is advised!

Reason: Tricky's motions, voice as well as his unmasked, demon, and skeletal form may be disturbing to some people. Also, Tricky's source series, Madness Combat, is known for its violent scenes and visuals. The mod also has screen shaking.

Golden Throne

Tricky the Clown, your singing voice is amazing! Sing again, sing again! I wanna hear! - Sayori

This mod is on the golden throne! It has more than 1,000,000 views on its download page and can be considered one of the best and most remembered mods in the Friday Night Funkin' community!

Reason: Tricky is the long standing most popular FNF mod out there with 8 million views and more than 2500 likes in total!

Large Article

so much dialogue in this mod god damn - Boyfriend

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Discontinued

ABANDONED - Gold

The development or possible updates of this mod have been canceled, so a release of its new content is not expected. The reasons for this vary, such as: controversies, lack or loss of interest, the disappearance or lack of passion for the mod, or simply a lack of ideas.

Reason: Mod has no more plans for update according to KadeDev.^[1]

Unfinished Page

I’m surprised someone as small as you didn’t break anything! - A.G.O.T.I.

This article lacks content, whether it be lacking Assets, Trivia, Music, or something else. You can help Funkipedia Mods Wiki by expanding it with more info! Thank you!

Reason: Static images for Boyfriend and Girlfriend are needed as well as some other various assets.

Tricky

Improbable Outset
Madness
Hellclown
Expurgation
COLOSSUS (Cancelled)
Pre-Zombie (Cancelled)

Aliases

Dr. Hofnarr (Formerly)
DJ TrickyM
TriKurrDurr (Internet username)
The Clown (Title in MC5: Depredation)
UNSTOPPABLE NEVADEAN CHAMPION

Relationships

Hank J. Wimbleton (Nemesis)
Sanford (Enemy)
Deimos (Enemy)
Auditor (Former Boss, Enemy)
Jebus (Former Co-Worker, Enemy)
The Sheriff (Former Boss)

Affiliation

Science Tower (Formerly)

AAHW (Formerly)

Occupation

Scientist (Formerly)
Hitman (Formerly)
DJ (Formerly)
Train Conductor (Formerly)

Biographical information

Age

Unknown

Place of birth

Likely Nevada

Date of death

Various (Resurrected multiple times)
Madness Combat 11: Expurgation (Final death)

Status

Banished (Destroyed permanently in every dimension)

Physical description

Species

Zombified Nevadian/Grunt

Demonic Creature (Hellclown)

Skeleton (Expurgation)

Gender

Genderless (he/him pronouns)^[2]^[3]

Eye color

None (However he possesses glowing red or white eyes throughout some forms)

Hair color

Orange (Normal)
*Red (Hellclown/Expurgation)

Appearances

Created by

Krinkels (Character and the Madness Combat series)
Banbuds, Rozebud, KadeDev, Cval (Mod)

Voiced by

Banbuds (Voice sampled)

Appears in

Madness Combat 2: Redeemer
Madness Combat 3: Avenger
Madness Combat 4: Apotheosis
Madness Combat 5: Depredation
Madness Combat 5.5
Madness Combat 6: Antipathy
Madness Combat 6.5
Madness Combat 7: Consternation
Madness Combat 8: Inundation (Cameo)
Madness Combat 9: Aggregation (Cameo)
Madness Combat 9.5
Madness Combat 10: Abrogation
Madness Combat 11: Expurgation
SACRIFICE.fla
Tricky Bangbanggooberblat
Tricky Madness 2
Incident: 101A
Incident: 1000A
Madness: Project Nexus (Classic)
MADNESS: Project Nexus (Steam)
Friday Night Funkin' (As a mod)
MADNESS: Off-Color

Debut

Madness Combat 2: Redeemer

Character Icons

Improbable Outset
Madness
Hellclown
Expurgation

“HANK! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!”― Tricky the Clown, Madness Combat 11: Expurgation

Doctor Hofnarr, better known as the infamous Tricky the Clown, is the secondary antagonist of the Madness Combat series. He was a scientist of the Project Nexus program, then an assassin hired by the Sheriff. He later becomes the primary antagonist of the Tricky Saga and briefly during the Auditor Saga. He is Hank's nemesis throughout the series.
His mod was created by Banbuds, Rozebud, KadeDev and Cval, with contributions from MORØ, Jads, YingYang48, and Tsuraran. His main week has 3 songs: Improbable Outset, Madness, and Hellclown. Clearing the week on Hard difficulty unlocks a final extremely difficult and unfair track in Freeplay, Expurgation.

Appearance

Tricky is a green-skinned zombie with curled, red-orange clown hair. He wears a gray cloak and a dull blue ruff with light blue orbs and a matching pair of dull blue shoes.

During Improbable Outset, he wears an iron slab hockey mask, and shakes slightly due to the Improbability Drive. He holds a microphone in his left hand.

During Madness, after being shot by Hank, his mask is blown off, exposing his face. He lacks skin on his jaw and mouth, a common trait shared with zombies in the Madness Series. He shakes noticeably more than he shakes in Improbable Outset, due to the Portable Improbability Drive becoming activated. He still has a microphone in his left hand.

During Hellclown, due to the Improbability Drive being turned on to its full power, he is transformed into a gigantic flaming-red demon, with all of his body, including his hair becoming made of fire, except for his hands and head. His head becomes a monstrous, inhuman skull, and he has pure white eyes, along with a new set of large, sharp teeth, as well as having claws on his hands. He no longer holds a microphone or shakes.

During Expurgation, he' seen in a relatively smaller form. His skeleton is black and orange, with no flesh or skin at all, has glowing red eyes, and a missing jaw. At the top of his head lies a halo, changed by the Auditor's energy. He shakes incredibly violent, to a point where he is hard to get a clear look at, and he floats in the air.

Gameplay Mechanics

Flame/Dark Halo Notes: During Hellclown, multiple black and red flaming notes appear. Hitting these notes takes away about 20% of the players health, meaning the player has to intentionally miss these on a playthrough (these do not appear on Easy Mode, however).
In Expurgation, the flaming notes are upgraded to Dark Halo Notes, which instantly blueball the player if hit.
HP Gremlin: During Expurgation, an "HP Gremlin" will occasionally appear and pull down the players health bar manually taking about 50% of the player's full HP. It takes progressively more and more health as the song progresses. HP cannot be lost or gained by missing/hitting notes while this happens. Near the very end in one of the calmer sections, it will pull the bar for a lot longer than usual, albeit slower. If the player doesn't have enough HP before this happens, they are guaranteed to lose.
Street signs: During Expurgation, numerous street signs will appear, blocking parts of the player's side of the screen in an attempt to obscure the player's view of the oncoming notes. As the song progresses, multiple signs will begin to appear at the same time, reaching up to four an screen at once.

Trivia

According to Krinkels, the creator of Tricky, this mod is canon to Madness Combat.^[4]
Version 2 was planned to be released on June 6th in the official trailer, but it was eventually released on June 2nd, four days earlier than the initial date as bug testing was done early.
In his second Q and A, Banbuds revealed that the sign was supposed to have an animation where it would slam down on boyfriend and his head would slice off, but the code for the game over animation is severely broken, so it is just a few still frames, explaining the awkward and initially confusing look of it.
In the same Q and A, Banbuds says "the signpost has bones because fuck it why not, I thought it was funny".
A unique visual trait of Tricky in this mod is words occasionally flashing during his turn, becoming more prominent in "Madness" afterwards. These words have the same font and color as his dialogue throughout the Madness Combat series.
Tricky's weapon, his silver street sign, comes from when Hank hit him on the head with it and stabbed him in the chest with it in Madness Combat 3: Avenger. Since then, the sign becomes Tricky's main weapon throughout the series.
The reason Tricky is shaking is not because he is angry, but because his Improbability Drive is activated, making him unable to fully control himself.
Tricky's mask comes from Madness Combat 4: Apotheosis, where he dons the mask for his "DJ Tricky" persona and has been subsequently damaged throughout the series' progression.
Tricky's theme from Avenger, Calliope, can be heard faintly throughout Madness and as a very noticeable leitmotif at several points, and the cutscene music, "Honkers", is a slower version of the leitmotif.
- In Expurgation, a small leitmotif of the common circus theme, "Entrance of the Gladiators", can be heard as well as a part of "Hellclown".
  - The same motif is also heard multiple times within Madness Combat 11: Expurgation.
Tricky flips the bird in phase 3 for his left pose, a massive one at that.
- Tricky flipping the bird is also a reference to Madness Accelerant.
Tricky's third phase was teased in the Friday Night Funkin': The Full-Ass Game Kickstarter trailer. This teaser has notable differences from the final version, such as Tricky being much smaller than he is in the mod proper.
Tricky in "Hellclown" is one of the largest Friday Night Funkin' mod characters so far, being able to come close to the TordBot in terms of sheer size.
Tricky's laugh/scream heard on the "Hellclown" cutscene is the same sound used in Madness Accelerant.
"Hellclown" is the first modded song to not be in a 4/4-time signature. It instead changes time signature several times throughout the song. It changes to 5/4, 7/4, 4/4, and 9/4.
It was stated by the developers before the update there was not going to be a phase 4 or 5 of Tricky added to the V2 update to the mod.^[5] However a "Phase 4" (Expurgation) was included after all.
There are multiple Roblox items purchasable in the catalog; one being a hat called Big Tricky Head that was authorized by Krinkels and the Tricky Mod devs.
- Another head item exists named after the character, Tricky The Clown. It resembles the Tricky head, but without the mask. It's unknown if the item was authorized by the Tricky mod developers and Krinkels.
- A third Tricky themed item on the catalog, the Metal Mask of Improbability, resembles a somewhat inaccurate version of Tricky's mask with red markings. It is unknown if it was authorized, and it is credited as a suggestion, so the creator may not have even known.
- The last known Tricky related item on the catalog, Big Tricky Phase 3 Head, is of course is based off of Tricky's phase 3 form. It was authorized by the Tricky mod developers and Krinkels.
The halo Tricky wears is the source of his power in this form. It originally belonged to Jesus before The Auditor killed him and took it for himself. Later, when The Auditor accidentally absorbs Tricky's dead body in an attempt to gain more power, the latter is revived by the halo and seizes control of its power.
Both the Google Drive link to download the mod and GameBanana had crashed because too many people were attempting to downloading it, similar to Newgrounds with Week 7.
In Version 1, there was a chance that the Nevada sign on the menu background will change from "NEVADA" to "Amogus", accompanied with a fragment of the "Dead Body Reported" sound effect from the game Among Us.
The new menu screen layout for Version 2 is a direct reference to Madness: Project Nexus (Classic), which has almost the same layout.
- The menu music for the mod's menu is a remix of the menu theme from Madness: Project Nexus (Classic), Catastrophe by Cheshyre.
There was a teaser for "Expurgation" which featured the instrumental of the choir part and a chiptune of the piano part and was titled "Distant Chuckle". This has caused much confusion, with some saying "Distant Chuckle" was a scrapped song with parts reused, but it is confirmed to be only a teaser, with the name never being a song name.
The cutscene music "Honkers" is made by YingYang48, the creator of VS. Hex.
The song that plays when starting up Version 2 is a remix of the DJ Birdy version of "Chicken Dance", the song that plays throughout Madness Combat 1 and at the end of Apotheosis.
In the cutscene that plays after "Hellclown", Tricky punches Hank and a red lightning appears around him on impact. This is a reference to the games Super Smash Bros. 4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where said red lightning effect appears when a hit that is guaranteed to knock out a player makes contact.
During the Post-"Hellclown" cutscene where the Auditor is seen behind a computer screen (likely an Improbability Drive monitor), the same red eye from "Glitcher" from the VS. Hex mod and seen in mods such as Vs. Whitty and Anders can be viewed when the screen glitches.
Tricky's Hellclown sprites are so big that they had to be scattered over 5 spritesheets, one for each animation.
- This also makes Tricky the second modded character to have multiple spritesheets that make up his character, the first being X-Gaster.
- This is also why some players may experience lag spikes the first time Tricky does each of his poses, as the game is loading these 8,192x8,192 pixel spritesheets for the first time.
- Tricky's Hellclown idle spritesheet is 11,706x10,864 pixels.
In the game's files, there is a picture of Gegcoin named "donated 20$". Gegcoin is a YouTuber who posts Friday Night Funkin' mod showcases.
The music from the new Game Over is a slowed version of the "Chicken Dance."
Tricky's vocals can be heard in the title screen theme. He is the second character to do this, the first being Impostor.
Once the player beats Expurgation, a mini Hellclown Tricky will appear on the menu, which the player can click on to annoy and interact with. Sometimes he will meow, which is a reference to Madness: Accelerant where he also meows.
Krinkels has said that neither men nor women exist in Madness, thus making Tricky and the rest of the cast genderless.
There is a chance that Tricky's roar in the start of Hellclown is an edited version of Demon Tricky screaming in Madness Combat 11: Expurgation.
This is the third mod to include a new type of arrows, being in this case the "Red arrows", the second was the Friday Night Funkin' HD, which included the warning arrows, and the first being Vs. Noke, which included gem arrows.
- However, in version 1, during the song "Madness" after the midway point, Tricky uses the "Red arrows" twice, both times being all four arrows at once. Noke's mod came out after version 1 Tricky, so Tricky was technically the first modded character add a new type of arrows.
There is a 2% chance of the Among Us Crewmate appearing on the main menu. He will cover every option on the menu if the player tries to select it, shaking his head whilst doing so. In order to access anything, the player has to click on the Crewmate, which kills it and plays the Among Us death sound effect.
Jebus's menu music was found in a ARG several weeks before the V2 update released.
Tricky so far is the only character to have a special pose when it hits all four notes, as seen in Expurgation.
- However, this is simply an animation programmed to appear only that one time that Tricky screams "HAAAAAAAANK!".
Krinkels himself was in the live chat during the premiere of V2 on Kade's channel.
There is a secret test song found in the files, which is a remix of "Chug Jug With You" made by RetroSpecter for April Fools where Tricky sings it along with a remixed instrumental.
- The vocals were voiced by Banbuds as well.
Similar to the base game, there is a picture in the assets that is a twitch comment saying "yo kade put me in the TIKY gamefiles".
There is a 3 second sound file called "dontListenToThis", which is one note from the Among Us Drip meme song.
All of the menu themes have leitmotifs based on which character is currently on screen. For example, if Jebus is on screen, the Madness Combat 7 theme plays.
According to Rozebud, any time Tricky seemed to have said anything (besides when he says "HANK") is purely coincidental and not intended.
Masked Tricky (Improbable Outset) is the only one of his forms that actually appears to bop to the beat in his idle animation. However, this animation is set to be looped in-game which means it does not actually follow the beat unlike Boyfriend and Girlfriend.
In the files, there is an unused version of the fire notes in Week 6's pixel art style. This was possibly added for compatibility if someone were to add fire notes to Week 6 charts. However, there is no code in the game that allows these to pop up, most likely because all the weeks from the original FNF were removed.
- There isn't a pixel variation for the halo notes in Expurgation.
Looking through the source code there are a few interesting things:
- Originally, normal notes had a 1 in 3 chance of turning into a fire note.
- The fire and halo notes are harder to hit late than normal notes.
- There is a trollface ASCII art hidden in PlayState.hx at lines 591-605.
The Tiny Desk Tricky that appears in the menu upon completing Expurgation is based on the Tiny Desk Engineer (and Thus the Tiny Desk Team) a meme product by Doctor Lalve
There is an old version of Madness's chart that notably has a lot more jacks.^[6]
The view count on the official upload of Expurgation has exceeded that of the Madness Combat episode by a wide margin; with the former having about 18 million views and the latter having about 8 million as of December 2023.

Music

MULTIPLE LOUD AUDIO FILES

Audio files here are loud. Listen at your own risk, and watch for the warning icon!

Placeholder Used

You wanna sing? But the BG isn't finished yet! - BBPanzu

This article uses one or more placeholders. Placeholders are commonly used for when a mod or asset hasn't been released publicly. Placeholders should be replaced with official assets as soon as possible.

Note: For immersive purposes, icons from various other mods are used here; such as Hank's from Friday Night Funkin' ONLINE VS., Red Impostor's from VS. Impostor, and more.

Improbable Outset

Extra Files:

Instrumental

BPM: 200

Key: A Minor

Scroll Speed: 2 (Easy)
2.5 (Normal)
3 (Hard)

Maximum Score: 106050 (Hard)

Song Length: 1:47

Composer(s): Rozebud

The name has its etymology of "Improbability Drive," Tricky's power source.

Madness

Extra Files:

Instrumental

BPM: 212

Key: F# Minor

Scroll Speed: 2 (Easy)
2.5 (Normal)
3 (Hard)

Maximum Score: 186200 (Hard)

Song Length: 2:31

Composer(s): Rozebud

Named after the Madness Combat series.

HELLCLOWN

Extra Files:

Instrumental

BPM: 197
Time Signature: 5/4 > 7/4 > 4/4 > 7/4 > 9/4 > 5/4

Key: D Minor

Scroll Speed: 2 (Easy)
2.5 (Normal)
3 (Hard)

Maximum Score: 319900 (Hard)

Song Length: 3:41

Composer(s): Rozebud

Expurgation

Extra Files:

Instrumental

BPM: 230

Key: C# Minor

Scroll Speed: 3.4

Maximum Score: 248150 (Hard)

Song Length: 3:14

Composer(s): JADS

Lyrics:

2:18
Tricky:
HAAAAAAAANK!

Named after the episode "Madness Combat 11: Expurgation".

Chicken Dance (Tsuraran Remix)

Composer(s): Tsuraran

Main Menu (Boyfriend)

Main Menu (Tricky)

Main Menu (Jebus)

Main Menu (Sanford)

Main Menu (Deimos)

Main Menu (Hank)

Main Menu (Auditor)

Main Menu (MAG Torture)

Main Menu (Sus/Crewmate)

Main Menu (Other)

Honkers (Cutscene Music)

BPM: 125

Key: B Minor

Composer(s): YingYang48

UNGODLY (Cutscene Music 2)

Composer(s): Rozebud

This clean rip comes from the Turtle Pals Tapes release of the Vs. Tricky OST! Go and support them! (It's also where we found out the name of this track.)

Game Over

Composer(s): YingYang48

Testsong

Improbable Outset (Beta)

Tricky screaming

Violence

BPM: 190

Key: G Minor

Song Length: 2:25

Composer(s): Rozebud, JADS

Lyrics:

0:06
Tricky:
NO! NO! NO! I'M THE ONE WHO SINGS FIRST!

1:28
Tricky:
FUCK YOU! I SING BETTER THAN YOU!

Was moved to Goblin Files before said mod was canned.

COLOSSUS

BPM: 227 > 248 > 237 > 267 > 243
Time Signature: 4/4 > 9/4 > 4/4

Key: F Minor (0:00 - 1:58)
F# Minor (1:59 - 4:15)
F Minor (4:16 - 4:53)

Song Length: 4:53

Composer(s): Rozebud

Lyrics:

0:14
Tricky:
DON'T YOU THINK YOU SHOULD ACTUALLY TRY TO WIN?

1:03
Tricky:
OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU'RE TERRIBLE AT THIS

2:14
Tricky:
EVEN A LIMBLESS CORPSE WOULD BE BETTER THAN YOU

3:06
Tricky:
AND I THOUGHT I WAS THE CLOWN HERE

4:30
Tricky:
WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY?

Improbability Drive Quotes

Improbability Drives are devices used throughout the Madness Combat series with the ability to completely break reality. Many variations of them can be seen throughout Madness Combat, with the most well known being the one implanted into Tricky's brain. This is what gives him his immense physical and supernatural power even before he gains the power of the halo. These messages flash on screen rapidly as a reference to their behavior in the original series.