Based on the horror franchise of the same name, players control counselors at Camp Crystal Lake as they attempt to defeat Jason Voorhees.

Players control one of six camp counselors (each with varying levels of running, jumping, throwing and rowing ability) in a side-scrolling perspective.

Each counselor has strengths and weaknesses in speed and they could make the difference in surviving or dying during the course of the game: Friday the 13th was developed by Japanese company Atlus as an adaptation of the film franchise of the same name.

The game was supervised by Atlus founder Hideyuki Yokoyama, who stated that he oversaw eight titles being produced for the North American market during this period.

[4] Ryutaro Ito, later a planner on the Shin Megami Tensei series,[5] was a junior member at Atlus during the development of Friday the 13th.

[7] While the Friday the 13th franchise is known in Japan as 13-Nichi no Kinyōbi Shirīzu (13日の金曜日シリーズ), Ito said that the game project was abbreviated as 13 Kin (13金) among Atlus staff.

[10] Friday the 13th was released in North America exclusively in February 1989, as part of LJN's focus on creating video games based on licenses, to very poor critical reception.

[12] GamePro listed it as the 10th worst video game based on a film, criticizing its "repetitive music score and amazingly frustrating gameplay".

[13] GamesRadar's Mikel Reparaz criticized its box, commenting that only LJN "would ever think to surround Jason Voorhees with neon-pastel vomit, thereby making him even more of an '80s relic than he already is.

"[14] Writer Christopher Grant commented that the game was more terrible than the deaths of the campers in the first Friday the 13th film, calling it "craptacular".