New Barn Runner Xmas Game

[Ponch]

I know I haven't been exactly the most active member lately, but just in time for Christmas, I burden you all with Barn Runner: Wreck The Halls.

Behold! A Moody Artistic Shot of the Hero!

This short game follows Detective Peckard once more into the lawless and officially non-existent Blue Grass Containment Zone to unravel the secret of a mysterious radio beacon that is luring runaway robots together for purposes unknown. He must contend with snow, dangerous locals, and his boss's raised expectations of him, as all the while, a ghostly figure from his past casts a long and sinister shadow over our lazy hero.

Will Detective Peckard expose the secret plot of the runaway robots? Can he maintain his easy going lifestyle in the face of the increasingly high opinion his co-workers suddenly have of him? Can he make it back late enough in the day to avoid turning in any paperwork? Will Santa bring him what he really wants for Christmas? And why has his former boss returned from the land of the declared legally dead to make trouble for the man who declared him legally dead in order to get his job?

All these questions and fewer will be probably be answered in some fashion everyone will surely find unsatisfying in Barn Runner: Wreck The Halls, available from TackyWorld Interactive, where good gaming ideas go to die!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD (RAR Format) (4.5 Megabytes)

And if you're a glutton for punishment, push those cutscenes to the limit of human endurance with the Director's Cut Patch!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD (RAR Format) (265 Kilobytes)

System Requirements:
Windows 95/98, 2000, ME, or XP
500 MHz Processor
128 Mb of RAM
DirectX compliant sound and video cards
35 Mb hard drive space

Rated "T" For Teen (not really, but it probably should be)
This game contains:
Religious Themes (Both Serious and Satirical)
Mildly Suggestive Adult Themes
Mild Profanity
Brief Partial Nudity (Mostly of the Stained Glass Window Variety)
Arcade Sequences (One primitive yet righteously kick-ass gunfight)

So, if you don't have anything better to do this Christmas, why not download and play this game? It's just like getting a lump of coal in your stocking without having to wait for Santa to bring it!

Merry Christmas,

Ponch

p.s. Now available all year round!

Even More Screen Shots!

Barn Runner: Wreck The Halls

[Dualnames]

EDIT: Laughed so hard...
really inspired dialogs... Haven't finished the game..
But I'm about to.

[Stupot]

I haven't got much time at the moment, but I'll play this before xmas.
May I ask, though.  Why are you only making it available until xmas?

[Ponch]

Why are you only making it available until xmas?

Two reasons, really. First, I'm a total sucker for exclusive freebies. I ordered every G.I. Joe mail order exclusive I could get my hands on as a kid. I lost sleep waiting for my missile-firing backpack Boba Fett to arrive (I was sorely disappointed with that one, but cest la vie). I just like "collectible" goodies, what can I say?

Secondly, Wreck The Halls isn't really part of the planned ten game Barn Runner series, and as such, I'm viewing it as a side story to the main plot. There's nothing in it that isn't part of the overall continuity (there's even a bit of foreshadowing about things to come), and I consider the game cannon, but it's the sort of thing that, if Barn Runner were a TV series on DVD, Wreck The Halls would be an Easter Egg you had to click around on the menu screen to find.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's a limited release for no reason other than I dig that sort of stuff. It's already been posted on a couple of gaming sites, so even when I pull the file, it will still be available somewhere on the interwebs, so it's not like it's really going away. I did the same thing three years ago with another limited release installment called Cyclone Alley and, for a while at least, I knew of one site that had snagged the file before I yanked it. I think they were the only place you could get that particular game until they disappeared from the web altogether.

Hope that answered the question and I hope you enjoy the game. I worked my butt off for a solid month trying to get it ready in time for Christmas! And giving free gifts is what Christmas is all about!

Also, thanks Dualnames for the nice words! 

- Ponch

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Cute in spite of the absolutely daunting inventory!  At one point I was hoping for:

Spoiler

The monologue in the bedroom to be interrupted by a tap on the shoulder from the bot.

[close]

One minor issue:

Spoiler

You can repeatedly shoot the bot while it is in one position but the additional shots do not register as hits.  It took several unnecessary deaths for me to figure this out

[close]

This is definitely the best Barn Runner yet.

[Ponch]

Cute in spite of the absolutely daunting inventory! ... This is definitely the best Barn Runner yet.

Thanks! That made my day! I pretty much put my life on hold for a month to whip this game together in time for Christmas (I've never produced a game from scratch so quickly before) and a little positive feedback is certainly appreciated. Hopefully, the forthcoming Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday will raise the bar for my games even higher.

Regarding the inventory, I admit there is quite a lot of it, isn't there? Most of it, like all the tomes to peruse on the bookshelf, are just there for color (and most of those books you can put back on the shelf if you don't want to carry them around). You can also get rid of a few things by tossing them in the fireplace.

However, a few of the items are more than just there to color the world.

Spoiler

Use the Multi Tool on the NRA Bible to get a second pistol to make the final shootout a little easier. Also, keep using the loaf of bread on the toaster until you finally get a piece of toast that the Virgin Mary has decided to appear on (has Blessed Toast ever been an inventory item before?). This slightly burnt miracle will give you an extra life for the shootout!
Please note that the only way to get rid of all the non-miraculous toast is to stuff it in the blue data terminal down in the well.

[close]

Also, I'm glad you liked the bedroom bit. I was trying for a few spooky moments in this game, something I've never done in a Barn Runner game before. Glad to know some of the moodiness I tried to create actually worked!

Thanks for the kind words, good sir!

- Ponch

[lakerz]

Ponch, I've downloaded your game (with extra dialogue of course!  ), and yes, I must say there is a lot of dialogue!!!  It's all good.

I'm enjoying the game a lot, but unfortunately am stuck.  Could ya help a brother out in the hint forum?    There *is* a heck of a lot of inventory already, and I feel I haven't even really made any progress yet. 

[Ponch]

Lakerz,

I found your question in the hint forum and posted an answer. Hope that helps!

- Ponch

[lakerz]

Thank you Ponch, it helped a great deal.  Finished the game, and a very nice game it was!  Nice graphics, fitting x-mas music, some tricky puzzles, and a whole lotta humor!  I really like the Barn Runner series, and June 2008 seems like too long to wait for the next installment.  Forget school/work/having a life...you need to go into turbo development mode on the next game. 

Anyways, for those who haven't downloaded it yet and don't mind some R-rated humor, do yourselves a favor and try it out.

[Ponch]

Well, I was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future last night and he convinced me to reform my ways and let poor ol' Bob Cratchit put a bit more coal in the stove. Oh, and also to ditch the whole "limited time only" thing for Wreck The Halls.

Oh, all right. The ghost didn't specifically mention the game by name, but I'm reforming my ways anyway. Surprisingly, this game has been downloaded faster than any Barn Runner game before it. Either I've become better at using AGS during my three year absence of any new Barn Runner games, or you guys are really desperate for something to play while you're snowed in for the winter. (We both know which one it is, but let me cling to my dreams, okay?)

Also, I've received a lot of e-mail about this game in the last two weeks... more than I've received about any other Barn Runner game in such a short time (thanks guys!) and, apparently, my "limited time" offer is equal parts baffling and infuriating. So, I've slapped up a page for the game on the New Games page and decided to make the game available year round. I promise never to do something so asinine again (though I thought it was a good idea at the time -- really I did!). 

I also know that my download counter will suffer a bit for missing out on all those sweet, sweet clicks from that early momentum, but them's the breaks. And is that really what Christmas is really about? Download counters? No way! It's about giving! So if you've already played it and you want to say something nice about the game or vote for it, then CLICK AWAY, good sir! and God bless us, every one!

- Ponch

[blueskirt]

Good to hear, Ponch!

I've always loved the Barn Runner series but the whole "You can't play Cyclone Alley because you weren't there at the time" deal bothered me. I'm glad to hear it won't happen again.

[hedgefield]

Yay more Barn Runner! Downloading now. Been too long Ponch, too long...

[Ponch]

Good to hear, Ponch! ... the whole "You can't play Cyclone Alley because you weren't there at the time" deal bothered me.

Glad you like my games! Check my website on January 2nd. Forum superstar Rui Pires contacted me and convinced me to dig Cyclone Alley from the depths of the "Hell of Many Boxes Filled With Old CDs." When I take the Christmas tree down in a couple of weeks and start packing everything away for the New Year, then I'll dig around until I figure out which CD in what box has that old nugget on it.

Don't get your hopes too high, though. It's a really short game that was meant as a sort of "icing on the cake" for The Prick Who Came In From the Cold. It's only a little longer that Don't Jerk The Trigger of Love (I was in my micro game phase back then, what can I say).

And largopredator, thanks for the praise. 2008 will be a banner year for Barn Runner, with five (count 'em, five!) new Barn Runner games released episodically, bi-monthly, starting in June. I'll start a thread in January in the "Games In Production" thread with screen shots and details.

- Ponch