I was going to submit this to GameFAQs but trying to get them to accept a file is a N-I-G-H-T-M-A-R-E!!! The technical requirements are so ludicrously specific and inaccurately explained (it's like the writers of the help guide have never even used Microsoft Word in their lives) that I would probably have to spend five hours fixing everything before the walkthrough finally ended up in a form they considered acceptable, and even then I just know, I just KNOW there would still be some problem preventing them from receiving it. That's how computers work: you try, and you fail. You foolishly attempt to look up the problem in a Help menu or troubleshooting guide which of course doesn't mention it. You use a search engine to find out what's wrong, find the problem, fix it, and still fail. Then you repeat the above steps about four or five times. Then, when you've finally gotten the technicals to where they need to be and in the meanwhile a small layer of foam has begun to creep into the corners of your mouth, what you're trying to do *still* doesn't work because it turns out there was some fundamental problem with the type of software you're using which nobody warned you about so it was always impossible from the start. I've been to that hell too many times before and I've no interest in going back so I'll just publish my walkthrough here, even though long posts seem to have broken formatting in this place. I *would* break it up into multiple posts but this board doesn't let you do that. If the mods know of some way to fix formatting, or can break it up themselves, I would appreciate it if they did so. Sorry.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Formalities
2. Introduction
3. How to Play
3A. Premise
3B. The Locales, and the Controls for Each
3C. Items
3D. Enemies
4. General Tips
5. How to Win
5A. Strategies for Fighting Specific Enemies
5B. Routes for the Forests and Caves
5C. The Walkthrough Proper


1. F-O-R-M-A-L-I-T-I-E-S

The NES game “Friday the 13th” was developed by Pack-In Video and is copyright Paramount Pictures Corp., 1988 and LJN Toys Ltd., 1988.

Special thanks to Youtubers ChancersSquire and brisulph for clearing up for me some of the misconceptions regarding the true, full way to get the torch. I think it may also be from the latter that I got the idea to use the forests as shortcuts. A third Youtuber who deserves credit is newfiebangaa, whose video informed me of the full usefulness of the knife.

Feel free to quote this guide anytime you want, so long as you credit the source.


2. I-N-T-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-O-N

It is commonly agreed that “Friday the 13th” is hardly the best game ever made. It is published by LJN, after all, and that all by itself tells the story. And indeed the game does have a lot of problems. The controls in the indoor segments are ridiculous. Jason *looks* ridiculous in a purple jumpsuit and light blue hockey mask (not to mention that outdoors he always appears oddly pudgy and out of shape). The game bombards you with glitches when you fight Jason’s mother. The ending is horribly, laughably anticlimactic. And then there’s that interminable five-second loop of music and the piercing sound of the Jason alarm…

And yet…and yet there is something strangely endearing about this title all the same, at least for me. In fact, the more I play it the more I like it. I don’t quite know what it is. Maybe it’s the entertainingly ominous tone struck with moments like when the background trees take the form of hulking shadowy spires in the distance at night, or when Jason’s health meter shows up at the bottom of the screen in a cabin, so that you know he’s around…somewhere. Maybe it’s the fact that “Friday the 13th” is surprisingly complex for the NES yet still easy to learn. Or maybe it’s the unique gameplay. (Well, have *you* ever seen anything like it, before or since?) Or perhaps I’ve just spent so much time on the game that I’ve developed a sort of case of Stockholm Syndrome. What I do know is that, no matter the particulars, there is a grand sense of elation and catharsis which comes from accomplishing a feat that seems insurmountable. I felt it the first time I won and I want to help you feel it too. I want to share the wealth.

I’m also doing this walkthrough for three other reasons. First, because I’ve never really written one of these before and I thought it might be fun. Second, because a lot of the other walkthroughs you’ll find on the net (I don’t want to name any names) contain gross inaccuracies, some of which may repeatedly cost you the game. (Even the *manual* is misleading about one or two things!) I want to set the record straight.

Third, I’ve found somewhat of a new strategy which I’d like to share. It’s not too different from the methods you may already be familiar with but it does contain variations involving ideas so crazy on the surface that you might never think of them on your own. If you follow this strategy then you’ll never have to bother with any of the game’s greatest challenges. You’ll never have to fight Jason’s mother. You’ll never have to learn to navigate the woods or the caves. Consequently, you won’t have to deal with a single wolf. You’ll never have to learn to dodge Jason’s outdoor attacks. Most importantly, you’ll (probably) never have to fight Jason indoors on day three. You’ll still need a little luck and a bit of practice but I can see you through.


3. H-O-W T-O P-L-A-Y

3A. PREMISE

This game takes place at a summer camp called Camp Crystal Lake. The object of the game is to kill the masked murderer Jason Voorhees three times. You win the game by pulling that off. You lose when either all six of the camp counselors you can control die (whether from their health meter at the top of the screen being depleted or from the counselor falling into a pit), or when Jason murders all fifteen of the eerie faceless statues—whoops, I mean kids—in the children’s cabins. Or when you automatically disconnect the power to the system by throwing your NES across the room in a fit of rage. Whichever way it happens. (The six counselors have their own respective strengths and weaknesses when it comes to different tasks like running, jumping and rowing but I explain all you really need to know about that below.)

Each time you kill Jason a new day will begin. Between days all surviving counselors get their health meters refilled but Jason and his mother will be revived too and will become more vicious with their attacks as well as harder to harm or evade. The three days the game spans are not primarily a matter of elapsed time, they’re more like levels—the three acts of the story. On each day dusk eventually falls, and then night. The darker it gets the more numerous some enemies become, whereas other enemies who weren’t there at all before will emerge. Night lasts as long as it has to until you’ve depleted Jason’s health meter and made it to the next day or the end of the game. Health meters go down whenever a character takes damage, and your counselors’ meters can be partially refilled with medicine vials. (The manual calls them “vitamins”. If in real life you ever see a bottle of thick red liquid marked “vitamins”, I advise you to stay away from it.)

You’ll know when Jason is endangering the kids or one of the other counselors because an alarm will ring. You’ll hear an irritating noise like a songbird being strangled underwater and you’ll see an alarm buzzer flashing at the top of the screen. The buzzer next to the word “children” is the alarm indicating that they’re in danger; the buzzer next to all the heads means that it’s one of the other counselors instead. The number of children remaining will be listed next to the word “children” when their alarm isn’t going off. The number of heads indicates how many fellow counselors are still alive. (You’d think that if the game designers wanted to assure us that our friends haven’t been murdered, presenting us with the image of severed heads wouldn’t necessarily be the most tactful way of doing it.) You can pull up the map screen to see who specifically is being attacked and where. The site of Jason’s assault will be flashing.

When the alarm is going off there will be also be a timer next to it ticking away the seconds before Jason kills whomever he’s menacing. The timer stops when you either enter the cabin where Jason’s attacks are happening or switch control to the counselor under attack. The longer you let the timer wind down, the more children (with a maximum of five) die, or alternately the more Jason wears away at your fellow counselor’s health meter. The timer starts over if you die in your rescue attempt but if it’s the children Jason is after then he won’t leave them alone just because you croaked. You’ll just have to send someone else. What were you thinking, that Jason was going to be a good sport?? Anyway, Jason’s increasingly deadly methods of attack alternate between fist, machete and an axe. He’ll stick with the axe for as long as he can. He will, however, go back to using his fists if he kills the counselor you’re controlling, and the cycle will start over again. Hit Jason seven times with any weapon and he flees. When Jason’s health meter gets low enough, however, he’ll keep on fighting you indoors long after getting hit seven times—in fact, till either you or he is dead. You’ll be in for a fight to the finish so plan ahead. And let the music from “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!” play in your head.

Just remember: Jason doesn’t always go after one of the *other* characters. Sometimes he’s the one who finds you. He can appear on the trails, in the lake, inside any cabin, or in either forest. I don’t remember ever coming across him in the caves but don’t quote me on that. As they say, a man can go his whole life without ever seeing a mockingbird. If you are seeking Jason out indoors, just keep moving around and turning around until you come across him and the fight begins. Note that he has a way of following fleeing counselors outside. But there is good news too: he won’t just suddenly appear when you’re in a cabin, the way that he will when you’re outdoors. Rather, he’ll stand in one place and wait for you to walk over, turn and face him. I guess he just wants to see the look on your face. Unless you’re already in a fight the game is effectually paused indoors until you do something.


3B: THE LOCALES, AND THE CONTROLS FOR EACH

The map screen: When you pause the game by pressing start it brings up the map—but for some reason this cannot be done inside large cabins, inside the children’s cabins, or in the lair of Jason’s mother. You can’t pause while fighting Jason indoors either. Bring up the map screen inside a small cabin and you can switch to another counselor by first pressing left or right to toggle between the lot and then selecting a counselor with A. You start off the game, and each individual day, by doing just that. When you’re outdoors the location of the counselor you’re controlling is marked on the map by a little orange symbol roughly in the shape of a human being. It looks kind of like the stick figure on the men’s room door has escaped and started running amok. The map will not, however, help you to navigate the forests or caves. Your exact location in those areas is never revealed: instead, the onscreen icon just stays in place around the entrance until you leave the area.

You’ll notice, if you look at the map, that the camp doesn’t appear to contain an infirmary or a mess hall or anything. There’s no parking lot to be seen anywhere either, or even latrines. I guess those things are just out of sight beyond the edge of the playable areas, across a brief stretch of field. I doubt very much that the game would have had the same ambience were you liable to imagine the battered and bloodied survivors walking fifty feet to the left of the map after the game’s ending, piling into a Volkswagen, and heading for the nearest Dairy Queen.

The trails: Your way of getting from point A to point B. You’ll notice, if you walk around these paths for long enough, that due to their going in a big loop you might sometimes end up heading the opposite way on the map from the direction it *looks* like you’re going in. Your counselor could be moving to the right, for example, while he appears to be walking left. That’s geometry for you: three left turns equals one right turn and vice versa. There is a trick to avoiding the confusion, and that is to remember that left and right are really reversed only on the northernmost portions of each trail (that is to say, the uppermost part on the map screen: I’m assuming the obvious cardinal directions here and throughout the walkthrough). If worst comes to worst you could always walk a *little* in one direction and then bring up the map screen to see which way you’ve moved.

The controls for the trails go as follows. Holding left or right sends your character in the according direction. Holding the down button makes them duck. Pressing up while squarely in front of a door or cabin, or an upwards path, makes the character go there. Pressing down while in front of a downwards path does the same. Pressing B makes your character jump (you can use the left or right buttons to move the counselor around in midair), and pressing A makes you throw your weapon in the direction you’re facing. You can’t throw your weapons while jumping but you can do it while ducking.

The lake: Every time the relevant alarm goes off and you need to travel to the children’s cabins to rescue the kids you’ll need to cross the lake to do so, and you’re almost sure to take damage in the process. Zombies and crows are particularly hard to avoid here, and to make things even worse Jason zips across the screen from time to time. When he does this the only way to avoid getting hurt is to be lucky enough to be sufficiently close to a dock so that you can escape before he reaches you. (Don’t bother even trying to get a hit in on Jason before he gets you.) Like the trails this place loops around, and seemingly in a different way, but the trick here is even simpler: if you’re heading to the children’s cabins from the left dock, go right. To get there from the right dock, go left. Otherwise the route will be long and circuitous, and those kids need your help PDQ. You’d think that after a while the counselors would wise up and be clever enough to move the kids around to separate or less obvious hiding places, but nooooooo. I don’t know, maybe they’re afraid of the children’s stony silence and total facelessness. Actually, come to think of it the counselors themselves don’t have faces either. In fact, the one and only character in this game who *isn’t* missing a face is missing the rest of her body instead. What kind of world is this?!

Anyway, here are the controls for the lake. Holding left or right makes you row in that direction (the movement is a bit sludgy at first and there’s some carry over in your momentum), pressing A makes you throw your weapon in the direction you’re facing, and pressing up while you’re in front of a dock makes you leave the lake.

The forests: As labyrinthine and avoidable as these areas are they can serve as handy shortcuts if you already know what routes to take, though I recommend not trying it at night since wolves will be hanging around out there. Nonetheless there are certain secrets to be discovered in the woods. The controls for these areas are the same as on the trails.

Large cabins: This is the type of cabin where you can light fireplaces or sometimes find items lying around. The controls for these and all indoor areas are really wonky. First, each direction you face while indoors is for all intents and purposes an entire room unto itself. For example, when you walk through the door there may be a note right next to you, but it doesn’t officially appear until you turn around and *face* the door. Try to picture this happening in the world we live in. Picture children hunting Easter eggs by standing in place and rotating by ninety degrees until they’ve looked all around, and then walking five steps away and doing the same. Picture minesweepers doing that in a minefield. It’s fun.

Now as for the controls, pressing left or right makes your character turn accordingly, holding the up button makes them move forward in the direction they’re facing, and holding the down button makes them turn around by a-hundred-and-eighty degrees. Pressing the select button activates the action menu on your right (you’ll know it’s activated because a red dot appears next to the commands), pressing up or down toggles between the choices on that menu, pressing A selects one of them with the dot, and pressing B deactivates the menu again. As for the menu itself, you use “cure” when standing in front of another counselor to use a vial of medicine (provided you have any) to partially refill their health meter. You use “take” to pick up an item from the floor. Use “change” to switch to the counselor standing in front of you, and use “pass” to exchange weapons with them. To light a fireplace, simply stand in front of it until it ignites. If you have the lighter, that’s all you need to do. To clear a message from the screen, press B. The exception is the messages you get when the first or second days end, in which case press start.

Boss fights are different matter. When you’re battling Jason or Pamela, holding left or right moves you in that direction, holding left/right *and* down at the same time lets you dodge an attack, and pressing A makes you throw your weapon forward.

The small cabins: These are the cabins you can enter in order to (a) switch which counselor you’re controlling, (b) treat the wounds of or trade weapons with a counselor who’s already there, or (c) rescue that counselor if they’re under attack. The controls work the same as in large cabins.

The children’s cabins: Reachable only through the lake. You’ll automatically enter the cabin you need to when you dock. This is where you have to go to fight Jason when the kids are in danger. The controls are the same as in all other indoor areas. Beware of stiff controls in all these places, by the way. The air may as well be made of molasses.

The caverns: You’ll notice that there is a huge cave complex in the upper left portion of the map. It’s not hard to find since there’s a trail leading right into its maw. Considering how many cabins are scattered about I find this all a tad disturbing. Would *you* house children so near a path leading directly into a near-pitch cave with hundred-foot drops almost directly at the entrance? Who runs this place? Anyway, this area is home to Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother—or what’s left of her. There are three different places in the caves where you might find her but this is relevant only on the first day, when different items might be obtained from the ensuing fight. The cave complex is probably the single most dangerous area in the game. In addition to Jason’s mother you must also contend with zombies, wolves, bats, falling stalactites, and pits. And to top it all off the cave is yet another giant maze. The controls for the area are the same as for the trails and woods save for the rooms where you find Jason’s mother, which operate by normal indoor area controls.

3C. ITEMS

Traveling around Camp Crystal Lake you’ll find a lot of objects materializing out of nowhere and hovering in midair. For some reason you have to jump into them to pick them up, even if they’re right in front of you and it looks like you could just walk right up and take them. Boy, let me tell you, I sure wish real life were like this, where you could get whatever object you needed just by jumping around and waiting for it to pop up out of thin air, and you’re good to go. But it isn’t. I checked. In fact, that park ranger even warned me that if I spent one more second pirouetting around the children’s nature trail screaming, “WHERE’S MY MACHETE?!” he’d arrest me.

Anyhoo, items seems to pop up most commonly (at first anyway) in the woods and the caves, as though the game is making a point of luring you into its most dangerous and confusing locales with the promise of goodies. I’m serious: you’ll feel like you walked right into Chitty Chitty freaking Bang Bang. A few particularly rare and powerful items, marked with a star in the list below, appear only under certain specific circumstances. Actually, some of these I would really not so much call “circumstances” as “elaborate chain reactions so convoluted and over-specific that it’s hard to believe they weren’t meant to be a prank on the player”. But I can tell you all about what to do. As I list these items you should note that each counselor must collect them all separately, and that each counselor can carry only one weapon at a time.

The lighter: referred to by the misleading Engrish of the game’s mysterious opening cutscene as “the torch”. Pay no attention to that: there is a torch but this ain’t it. Anyway, the lighter is for the chimneys you’ll find in the large cabins. It may seem an odd concept indeed to go around lighting fireplaces and basking in their warm glow while a hundred feet away there’s a maniac with a machete slaughtering children five at a time but the lighting of the fires does serve its purpose. For one thing, it can trigger the appearances of certain items. For another thing, by many accounts Jason never enters a cabin where the fireplace has already been lit. (What is he, a gremlin??) I can’t say for certain that this is true as it’s infamously difficult to prove a negative, but I *think* it’s true. You can make the lighter appear on the path by killing about three to five zombies. No other items will show up for you until you have this one.

* The notes: Clues on little slips of paper left lying around the large cabins. I always find this part of the game wonderfully intriguing, and rather enjoy chewing on the mystery. Who is leaving these notes lying around? It can’t be any of the counselors you play as: they all have equal need of the notes, which implies that they haven’t read them before. Certainly the children couldn’t have left the notes, as they’ve been holed up in the children’s cabins the whole time. Perhaps the author is that same weird schmuck from “Simon’s Quest” who keeps squirreling away around the landscape red books which contain cryptic nonsense such as “a flame flickers inside the ring of fire”. Yet these notes are anything but unhelpful. What they say is vague, yes, but it’s still good advice. More importantly, collecting notes triggers certain events in the game which cannot occur otherwise, so pick the notes up with the “take” action even if you already know their contents from previous runs. You’ll read the note automatically just by taking it. Notes don’t appear for you until you have found the knife and grabbed it. Getting the knife from another counselor via the “pass” command doesn’t seem to do the trick.

The rock: All of your counselors start with this for a weapon. Naturally it’s the weakest one but at least you never run out. (Actually, you can reuse *any* weapon indefinitely in this game, and some of them can even be spammed.) The rock has a way of arcing over enemies so be careful where you stand. Crouching while throwing can help.

The knife: Your first weapon upgrade. It should appear in midair on the trails somewhere not very long after you’ve gotten the lighter (but item appearances are somewhat random in this game so don’t get discouraged if it takes a while). The knife flies across the screen and does slightly more damage than the rock.

* The machete: This appears either when you kill Jason’s mother on the first day (depending on where you fight her) or when any one counselor has killed about sixty zombies. It spins through the air and deals more damage than the knife but less damage than the axe. Note that every individual counselor can (I think) make the machete appear by killing zombies only once, so if you accidentally pick up another weapon then don’t bother trying it all again. But I can show you how to get better weapons anyway.

* The axe: This weapon is slower than, but also more damaging than, the machete. It can be found either by killing Jason’s mother on the first day in a certain part of the cave or by killing her elsewhere when you already have the machete. It can also be found sometimes in one of the cabins in the woods, which is the better place to get it, as I explain all about in section 5C.

* The torch: If you somehow know to set off about six or eight particular triggers in a row then this item will appear in the northern lakeside large cabin. It deals as much damage as the pitchfork (and more damage than the axe) and burns in place for a moment kind of like the fire bomb in “Castlevania”.

* The pitchfork: This is the ultimate weapon upgrade (so a pitchfork hurts worse than fire now, does it?), every bit as powerful as the torch but also longer, quicker, and capable of mowing down enemy after enemy on its way across the screen, whereas all the other weapons stop after hitting their first target. You can get the pitchfork only by killing Jason’s mother on the third day.

* The flashlight: This item appears when you’ve seen to all the fireplaces. It lights up the secret exits in the cave and makes bats more visible.

* The sweater: This was originally the trademark apparel of Jason’s mom. When you’re wearing it he’ll associate you with the only thing he ever loved…or be confused as to whether you actually *are* her…or something…and he’ll hold back somewhat with his blows. Not with their frequency or speed, mind you, but with their force. That is to say, he’ll deal less damage with each attack. The sweater apparently also makes Jason less liable to come after the counselor wearing it. Whatever you may have heard to the contrary I’m pretty sure it’s not true that male counselors are less protected by the sweater than female ones. You’ll know which character is wearing the sweater because they’ll be brightly flashing. You just know that when all is said and done one of these twenty-ish counselors is taking this thing to a rave.

Medicine vials (or “vitamins”, but I refuse to call them that): These little red bottles pop up from time to time in the air around you. They’re harder to come by when you get further into the game so grab them when you can. If your counselor has one when his or her health meter is depleted then that counselor will use the vial automatically and the meter will refill a little. You can also use the vial on another counselor if *their* health meter is low, by going up to them in a cabin and using “cure”.

Keys: There are doors in the woods and caves which can’t be opened without one of these. Fortunately this is not one of those games where the door somehow devours the key whenever you use one so that you need to get a new key every time. A counselor just has to pick up a single key and they’re good to go for all three days. I wonder if “Attack of the Key-Eating Doors” would make for a good title for a film.


3D. ENEMIES

Harmful characters come in six types, and every time any of them touch you it makes your health meter shorten. (In the case of Jason you can also be harmed by his weapons.) There is Jason himself, there is his mother, and there are four recurring minor enemies, two of which can only be found in certain parts of the map and/or at certain times of day.

Zombies: This is the game’s version of death by a thousand cuts. Zombies swarm you in the caves and in all outdoor locations, and even jump out of the lake. Sometimes they come after you three at a time. There are more of them at dusk than by day and more still at night. They start moving faster when you get further into the game. The manual explains that they’re previous victims of Jason, rising from the dead due to some…“American Werewolf in London”-type curse, I guess? Evidently the curse also turned them blue and made them sprout ridiculous orange fur. Well, wouldn’t *you* feel cursed if that happened to you?

Crows: These can be found flying around outdoors at night, or above the lake at any time of day. Why their eyes glow I have no idea. I’d love to capture one and show it to an ornithologist. The look on his face would be priceless. In fact, somebody go do a webcomic about that! Anyway, the crows come one at a time. They wait until they’re close enough and then swoop at you, which can be especially hard to deal with when you’re on the lake.

Bats: These critters appear in the caves at dusk and at night. Their pattern of flight makes them a little tricky to dodge and if you don’t have a flashlight then you can only kind of see exactly where they are in the first place.

Wolves: Prowlers of the forests and the deep caverns, these aggressive pests appear only at dusk or at night. They run and lunge back and forth and are surprisingly resilient. As I’ve said, you can make it through the game without having to encounter a single one (the same goes for bats) but depending on your exact strategy you might want to head to their stamping grounds anyway. As far as I know the wolves’ (and zombies’) differing colors is nothing more than a cosmetic difference depending on location and has no effect on the actual gameplay, although the manual does refer to the blue wolves of the caverns as ghosts. If this is true then they seem surprisingly solid.

Pamela Voorhees: The disembodied head of Jason’s mother, perpetually prone to lunging through the air at you from above. She lurks in the caves and there are three different places there wherein you might encounter her. Killing her yields different items under different circumstances. Pamela looks remarkably like Medusa in the first “Castlevania” game but is a great deal harder to fight.

Jason Voorhees: the main character of the story when you really think about it. He can pop up most anywhere and whenever he does someone is in trouble. I say pretty much everything there is to say about him throughout the rest of this walkthrough. One thing I *haven’t* mentioned is how weirdly this game depicts him, and not just with the way he looks. Stop and think about it: can you really picture Jason, of all people, fleeing with his tail between his legs after getting pelted with a couple of rocks?!


4. G-E-N-E-R-A-L T-I-P-S

For those who want only advice and not spoilers here are some pointers which should aid you in the task of finding your own way to win.

* First, read the “How to Play” section above even if you already know how to play. There is a little more up there than just the basics.

* If you have nothing to do while waiting for Jason to make his move then depending on your counselor’s current location your best bet may be to stand at the fork between the southernmost part of the lakeside path and the southernmost part of the outer path—that is, at the joining of trails down at the bottom-center of the map. Just stay in place and kill zombies until the alarm rings. You can escape via the path if you get overwhelmed or if you want to avoid a crow. This location, you see, is the best starting point, the best compromise, when you have no idea what part of the map you’ll need to head to next. Just remember: Jason can still show up when you’re standing in place. He sometimes even appears twice in a row.

* When a counselor is being attacked in a small cabin Jason will follow you out of the building only if you’re controlling the counselor under attack. If you’ve already gone to a cabin to rescue them then you can’t draw the brute out that way even by switching counselors. He’ll just start attacking the other guy you left inside. If you want to lure him onto the trails then what you *can* do is go into a different small cabin, pull up the map screen, and from *there* switch to the counselor under attack. As that counselor, head outside. Bear in mind, though, that Jason might catch you on your way out. If you use the down button and turn over by a-hundred-and-eighty degrees, you’ll cut down on the chances of this happening.

* Your counselors’ starting points are randomized with each game. So if you want to control one counselor in particular but find them starting off in a place you don’t want to be in then you can just reset the game, and keep resetting if needed until you have a satisfactory arrangement. Speaking of random locations, bear in mind that the counselors you’re not currently controlling may move to a different cabin behind your back.

* When you encounter Jason outdoors you can sometimes manage to get away by fleeing quickly up or down a path, or into the caves or a cabin.

* Be careful jumping around for zombies can sprout from the ground right where you’re about to land. This rule goes double when you’re carrying a powerful weapon: if a lesser weapon appears in midair while you’re in mid-jump and you end up flying into it, you’re stuck switching to the lesser weapon and you can’t switch back. This ain’t “Rondo of Blood”. Conversely, if you *never* jump around at all then at night it might slow you down to have to constantly take down zombie after zombie along your way, especially if you’re still using the rock.

* Since the timer counting down the seconds until Jason kills someone is paused when you’re indoors you can, for example, duck into a cabin while there are forty seconds left and walk around the building for ten minutes and when you leave you’ll still have forty seconds. This can be helpful if there happens to be an unlit fireplace or two on your way to rescue someone. Jason never really hurts any of the people you’re trying to rescue until a certain amount of time goes by anyway. (I think it’s thirty seconds but err on the side of caution.)

* Fireplaces don’t light up instantaneously. You’ll need to wait until the flame is visible or you won’t have lit the fireplace at all. Items too don’t quite appear the very split second you turn around indoors. So don’t move about the cabins too rapidly or you might miss something.

* Making maps of the forests and caves isn’t as easy as you’d think since the paths are as self-contradictory and illogical as the roads of North Little Rock. That is to say, taking the same path more than once in a row (except at the entrances to the areas) won’t cause you to retrace your steps, they’ll put you in a new location altogether. Not to mention that the areas loop from left to right just like the circular trails. I recommend that you simply write down which paths you take while using simple trial and error, and wait until you happen to stumble upon something. It might help to note the distinct platforms in the caves or the particular combinations of paths in the woods (upward path-upward path-downward path or whatever). Also, if you’re going to explore the cave, do so with either Crissy or Mark. You’ll need their jumping abilities. You’ll want to bring along a flashlight too. And bring a key for either the caves *or* the woods. Finally, you’d best not do any exploration while making any real attempt to play the game (to win it, I mean), as the clock is always ticking on the alarms even when you’re hopelessly lost.

* You never seem to get more than one crow or about three zombies onscreen at the same time, so if you have them following right behind you then no more will appear in your way.

* Try not to get stranded in the northernmost portion of the outer path, especially with a slow counselor (i.e. Debbie, Paul or George). There is quite a long stretch between cabins out there and for all you know an alarm may sound while you’re in the middle of it.

* As random as Jason’s appearances may seem he doesn’t tend to stray far at first from the last place he was in. This information can be useful both for when you’re trying to find him and for when you’re trying to avoid him.

* Items in this game have a way of appearing just as you’re right about to enter a cabin or take a path. Be on the lookout. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen, for a split second, a medicine vial appear nearby just as I’m turning into a cabin to light a fireplace.

* Lastly, although this has nothing to do with gameplay I may as well warn you now that playing for hours at a time will in short order make you extremely fed up with that five-second musical loop and with the sound of the alarms, so you might want to mute the game, crank up some BOC (“One Step Ahead of The Devil” seems appropriate), and watch the screen for alarms instead of listening for them. You might be surprised how easily they can catch your attention out of the corner of your eye. Just don’t let your focus lapse *too* terribly much.


5. H-O-W T-O W-I-N

For those who do want it all spelled out for them this section is the place to go. You might still want to read section four, though.

5A. STRATEGIES FOR FIGHTING SPECIFIC ENEMIES

Wolves and bats: If you follow the directions in section 5C then you shouldn’t come across a single wolf or bat throughout the whole game. Should it happen, though, the trick for evading wolves is to jump over them before they get close enough to lunge. That is, if your character is a good enough jumper (i.e. Mark or Crissy). If not, just run away. You can stand and fight if you must since the patterns aren’t very hard to learn but a wolf can take quite a licking for a minor enemy. As for the bats, walk under them when they’re at the height of their zigzagging flight pattern. Attacking them is pointless.

Crows: These critters can be a stickler. Mark or Crissy can easily enough jump over a crow as it flies low for a moment before making its final swoop; everyone else would do well to throw a weapon at the crow during that moment instead (and you might want to try it anyway, even with Mark or Crissy). Being attacked by crows on the lake, however, is a different matter altogether. Try tossing your weapon on the early side there.

Zombies: On land these guys aren’t much of a problem except if you jump around too much but they too can be hard to avoid on the lake. What you need to do there is halt your momentum and immediately row a little in the opposite direction. Of course at times the zombies seem to come right up from directly beneath you, in which case there’s not a lot you can do.

Jason Voorhees: When a second health meter appears in the same cabin you’re in, or when the screen stops scrolling outdoors, you know he’s coming. When fighting you indoors Jason always follows pretty predictable patterns. When he comes near you he strikes. If he draws back a bit and *then* comes near you, or otherwise approaches from a place not far from where you’re standing, he’s going to attack twice in a row. You can sometimes hit *him* twice while he’s backing up although this is harder after the first day given that on day two he randomly starts moving really fast in what fans like to call his “turbo mode” and on day three he’s in turbo mode constantly. In turbo mode Jason always seems to attack twice in a row.

On day one all you have to do is dodge and strike, although it may still take a bit of practice given the difficult controls. As for day two, when he goes into turbo mode you’d best wait for him to slow down again before fighting back. Just dodge his attacks until it becomes easier once more. On day three you should avoid seriously attempting to fight him indoors at all (see section 5C for details on how to pull this off) but the bout can be won in theory and as such there is a technique to it. What you must do is dodge at the very last possible split second, which will cause you to evade both successive attacks due to Jason’s tremendous speed. Then quickly throw your weapon. Good luck trying! One thing all three days have in common is that it’s never a good idea for you to move around the room much when you’re fighting him. Just stand in place and dodge when necessary.

Tangling with Jason outdoors is another matter. There you can jump over the projectiles he tosses. However, it’s difficult to pull this off—especially on days two or three, when Jason is progressively faster. Trying to jump over Jason himself is a great deal harder still and I would not advise it. Be careful not to let him corner you either. The longer you let the fight go on, the worse for you it’s liable to get. Due to the mercy invincibility you receive whenever you take damage you should be able to avoid getting hit more than about once, even on day three and even if you make no attempt to dodge any attacks at all. Just stand roughly in the middle of the screen (though more toward the side Jason has emerged from, at least if you’re planning to give chase afterward) and spam your weapon. If you time it right and hit Jason as he appears and then again as he’s escaping, you can manage to hurt him nine times in a single bout. With the torch or the pitchfork that amounts to taking out not far from a third of his health meter at the cost of only one or two hits for yourself!

Pamela Voorhees: Compared to your indoor fights with Jason the technique here is a little different even though the gameplay mechanics are similar. Ducking doesn’t do you much good against Pamela; rather, you have to move out of her way to the left or the right. If you’re quick then you might get two or three hits in before she ever starts fighting you—and occasionally two hits in a row even after that. A good time for this is when she’s slowly drawing back toward the top of the screen. You are safe for a moment then and you’ll want to take advantage of it. At other times try to stay just beyond the range of her swoop, to the side, and throw your weapon a little early if she’s headed your way, but don’t let her corner you. Be prepared to have half of your attacks fail to reach her for no good reason. On day two Pamela will do an occasional double swoop so don’t let her get too close. On the day three Pamela will do a lot more double swoops and even the occasional triple one. It’s best not to face her without bringing along some medicine, even on day one.


5B. ROUTES FOR THE FORESTS AND CAVES

The cave complex is simple. You don’t even need a flashlight. Just jump two ledges over to the left from the entrance, find the background rock that looks a little different from the others, stand in front of it, and press up. It’s a little hard to spot, I know, so if all else fails then just position yourself a little close to the leftmost part of the ledge and use some trial and error. Voila: you are now in the hiding place of Jason’s mother. (There is nothing else of value in the caverns, really, except that you might find a few items by jumping around. Be warned that it’s easy to be lured into falling into a pit when medicine shows up in just the wrong place.) To get back, retrace your steps. I mentioned earlier that there are two other places where Jason’s mother might be found and that on day one these places yield different weapons for you but the strategy I outline in section 5C renders all of that irrelevant. You can get better weapons more safely and easily on day one without going into the cave at all.

As for the two forests there is much to be said. There are three sylvan cabins, two in the northern woods and one in the southern. One of the northern forest’s cabins is a very good place to visit, for reasons I explain in 5C. As far as I know there is nothing to be gained from going into the cabin in the southern forest, and the other cabin of the northern woods is similarly avoidable. Nonetheless both forests have their usefulness due to the shortcuts they provide, which I shall explain here.

To get from the northern forest’s lower (lakeside) entrance to the upper (outer path) entrance you take the first path to your left, and then again take the first path to your left, and then the first path to your right. Then go down that very same path twice more. It makes no sense, I know, but that’s how you do it. Left, left, right, same path, same path again. To go through the northern woods the opposite way, do not retrace your steps. Instead just take the first path you see on the right, and then do the same thing again, and then a third time. One to the right, one to the right, one to the right. That’s all it takes.

To get through the southern woods from the upper (lakeside) entrance to the lower (outer path) entrance, take the first path to the left, and then that same path again, and then the first path to the left, and then the first path to the right, and again the first path to the right. Left, same path, left, right, right. To get through the southern woods the opposite way take the first path to the left, and from there once again take the first path to the left. Bam. The programmers seem to enjoy making you feel stupid by having the routes be easy to memorize if only you know them to begin with, so that your fifteen minutes of hopeless meandering feel like they’re in vain. What a diabolical game.

The directions to and from the one useful sylvan cabin are given below in section 5C.


5C. THE WALKTHROUGH PROPER

First, if you’re new or rusty at this game then I advise you to take a few practice shots before bothering to make any actual attempts to win, especially when it comes to indoor fighting. Practice battling Jason and his mother on at least the first two days if you can manage it. There is only so much that you can learn from mere text. Instinct, experience and muscle memory are the most important factors in any remotely action-oriented game, and the only way to hone them is through repetition.

Also, when you do play to win make your decision right up front as to whether you plan to head into the cave to face Jason’s mother when I say the time is right. It can help a lot to do so but the protection provided comes at the cost of a difficult boss fight. If you’d like to try it then you’ll do well to have one counselor in particular start gathering as many medicine vials as possible from the start. They pop up a lot during daylight on the first day.

Okay, enough prattle. Here’s how to beat a game considered by many to be impossible.

Day One:

Your top priority from the start (apart from quickly stopping Jason’s murder attempts whenever the alarms sound, of course) will be to get your three fastest counselors—Mark, Crissy and Laura—equipped with torches, with Laura being a lower priority than the other two. If you can manage a fourth counselor, terrific, but it’s unnecessary. When the alarm does go off and it’s one of the other counselors being menaced, I recommend going into the nearest neutral small cabin, switching to the counselor under attack, fighting Jason inside the cabin, and then switching back to whoever you were controlling before. However, if you happen to already be close to the cabin in question then you might want to first fight Jason as the person he’s assaulting and then switch to a counselor farther away from the site of the attack. On the other two days you’re better off facing the big guy outdoors but on day one it’s the other way around.

If it’s the children who are under attack then head into the lake as one of the three slower counselors, preferably not George. You’ll want to keep these lesser counselors from getting all that well-equipped at first. Ideally, in fact, the person you send into the lake should still be using rocks. It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but your goal throughout most of day one will be to keep Jason alive along with everyone else and chip away at his health meter only slowly. This means attacking him no more often, and with no more powerful weapons, than is absolutely necessary. You’ll not want to have to do much grinding on day two, you see. Keep all the children alive if you can. I know that sounds like a major case of “Captain Obvious to the rescue!” but I have a good reason for mentioning it which should be made clear by the “Day Three” section below.

There are two different ways to get counselors equipped with torches: the longer, more well-known and widely misreported way, and the quick-and-easy way which has come to be called “the quick torch method”. The former is almost never explained correctly even by walkthroughs and the result is a lot of frustrating games wherein you light all of the fireplaces in the camp only to find yourself without anything to show for it but a measly flashlight. People usually leave it that you have to light the fireplaces, you see. In actual fact you have to light them in a certain order, *and* have a knife so that you can find the notes lying around, *and* read those notes, *and* go to one particular cabin afterward. Was there any point to all this secrecy? To create confusion? It worked.

The correct order of the large cabins you need to visit and illuminate goes as follows: first the cabin near the lower left corner of the map, on the outer path; then the cabin to the lower right of the caves; then the other large cabin by the caves; then the one on the outer path north from there, around the upper left corner of the map; and then finally the one in the middle of the rightmost part of the map. Have mercy! Moreover, you have to collect the notes lying around the latter two cabins, which means already having picked up a dagger on the trail. Once you’ve killed a few zombies, gotten the lighter, gotten the dagger, gone through the cabins in the correct order, lit up all of their fireplaces, picked up all of their notes, found an acre of land between the salt and the sea strand, located Jimmy Hoffa, cut down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring and successfully combined relativistic and quantum physics to uncover a Grand Unified Theory, the torch should be lying in the large cabin north of the lake.

Like I said, there is a shorter way—although on occasion it feels easier to go the long route instead because sometimes the game simply will not give you an inch when you’re searching for a particular object. (If worst comes to worst you could always just have your counselors kill zombies until a machete appears.) Anyway, in order to pull off this second method you’ll need not only a lighter and a knife but also a key. I recommend getting the necessary items for all three of the counselors you’re trying to equip before sending any of them off to do anything else. The next step is to head to the aforementioned large cabin north of the lake, find the note there, and take it. Then you head into the northern forest via the nearby lakeside entrance. (To the left of the entrance the woods should at first yield a key, a knife and some medicine, so that will help if you’re having trouble getting items.) Anyway, from the entrance to the wood you can somehow get to a cabin by taking the first path you’ll find to the right and then taking that same very path again. Before you head through the locked door you’ll find there, though, leave and immediately come back. *Then* go through the door and search the cabin. Pick up the note lying there and head back out.

At this point you may notice, by the exit, an axe lying on the floor. For some reason that axe isn’t always there, and I honestly have no idea why. If it is, go ahead and take it even though you won’t need it: you can pass it to another counselor (preferably not your designated rower) before collecting the torch. If it isn’t there, no biggie. Now leave the cabin, take the first path to your right, and then from there again go down the first path you find on the right. The torch will be in the large cabin north of the lake. Go in there and get it, and then repeat all the aforementioned steps for the other counselors you’re trying to equip. In the meanwhile, of course, Jason won’t be idle, and you may even end up running into him yourself. You’ll find info on what to do then in section 5A.

Once you’ve gotten your three fastest counselors torches (or at least Mark and Crissy), go ahead and start using the torches on Jason—indoors only if you can. If Jason goes after another counselor, head over there as the nearest torchbearer and fight. If Jason goes after the children, however, you’ll still want to keep the torchbearers away from the deadly lake. If any of the slower counselors do have axes by this point then you could send them. If a torchbearer’s health gets low enough then you could have them switch weapons with someone else. You can give the torch back to the faster guy on day two after everyone’s health meters are refilled. Just remember that when a counselor dies all of their possessions are lost forever. After a few fights Jason should go down easily enough, if you’re sufficiently practiced at fighting him indoors, and if not, just keep practicing.

Day Two:

If you’ve decided you’d like to try your hand at battling Pamela Voorhees, this would be the time to do it. On day one there’s no need for it and on day three it’s more trouble than it’s worth but today the prize is the sweater, which you might want to gain. If you’re going in then it’s best to send someone (with the torch, of course, or at least an axe) who has a minimum of two bottles of medicine. You’ll need a key but not a flashlight. Just find the secret door to the left of where you enter the cave, as explained in further detail in section 5B, and fight Pamela as explained in section 5A. The rest of us will wait for you out here in the warmth and daylight. If you do manage to get the sweater, protect the counselor who’s wearing it. Unless that counselor still has a fair amount of medicine left don’t let them roam around at all if their health is low, which at this point it may well be. You could, to be sure, have another counselor use “cure” on them. If the sweater-wearer *is* in reasonably good shape then you can use him or her to fight Jason for the rest of this day.

Speaking of whom, you’ll need to be more aggressive with Jason from now on. You have what you need by now: it’s time to make the hunter become the hunted. (Did I really just say that??) If he’s attacking a low-powered counselor, head to the cabin with a torchbearer and fight him. Then leave and walk around near the cabin in the hopes that you run into him there. Wander around any area where you know he just was. If you make a complete loop on the trails and don’t find him, start wandering a different area. When you do find Jason spam him relentlessly and follow him immediately. But don’t keep this up if your health gets too low: remember, you have about two other torchbearers at this point, if you’ve played your cards right. You’ll still want to use the less powerful counselors when heading into the lake, but if they have axes then you could probably risk it if you’ve gotten used to Jason’s day two indoor fighting tactics. If a machete shows up for one of them, go ahead and take it. Eventually Jason will die yet again. It doesn’t seem to bother him much.

Day Three:

Here we are, folks: the real crux of the game’s challenge. The part most people never make it past. I’m about to ask you to try yet another measure that may sound crazy or counter-intuitive but I want you to bear with me here. I want you to kill off all the remaining counselors who don’t have torches, and I want you to do it pronto (although if due to previously switching weapons one of the torches has ended up in the hands of a slower counselor, be sure to switch the torch back to a faster one first). The key to getting through this day is to avoid trying to defeat Jason indoors at all. It’s just not worth the effort. So on day three after switching to a counselor under assault you’ll need to try to leave the cabin (remember to turn around all the way by hitting down) so that you can fight him outdoors and chase him afterward.

If Jason goes after the children too many times then you may as well reset the game. It would actually be less frustrating than the alternative. Eventually you will win anyway and it will all be worth it. There is one possible exception to this rule. When Jason attacks the children it can help to send axe-bearers or even machete-bearers after him as sacrifices. During indoor battles, you see, if you stand there and just rail away at him then you can usually get in two hits at a time while taking only one hit yourself. This is also the best thing to do if Jason forces a confrontation while you’re trying to make it outside. You probably won’t be able to save the kids anyway so you may as well wear away slightly at Jason’s health meter in the process so that you’ll have gained a little something from it. Do it for the children, Dirk!

A better bet during attacks on the kids, however, would be to stand on the lakeside trails (preferably not far from one of the docks) until the timer winds down to zero and then start moving around the path. (Don’t do this if you’re the one wearing the sweater.) Whenever you catch and spam the monster, make sure to get in all nine hits, and to give chase instantly so that you might get to repeat the process. The longer you let Jason go unscathed, the likelier it is that he’ll attack the children too often and you’ll lose. Although there is a certain amount of luck involved sooner or later you’ll get your chance to fight him outdoors a few times and see the game’s horrendously lazy ending. But it’ll still feel great to watch it. You’ll see.