Barn Runner 5: Chapter One

[Ponch]

After far, far too long in development limbo, I shovel onto this forum Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 1. Chapter One in an episodic five game series

Our hero looks down on a city soon to be in flames

This medium length game follows Detective Peckard through the worst day of his life. Laughs and hi-jinks are sure to ensue as Prick watches the sad scraps of his life swirl down the drain. It's funny because it's not happening to you!

Fortunately, things turn around for our down-on-his-luck hero when the world suddenly ends. Now everyone is in the same sinking boat as Prick, and he's just the sort to find solace in other people's misery. All this wonderful schadenfreude might just give him the nudge he needs to save the world.

This game is only part one of a much larger series (five chapters in all) that will be released quarterly over the next year, making this the biggest Barn Runner game ever! (I'm so sorry about that. Seriously.)

Will Prick save the world? Will the player be overwhelmed by the sparkling and shiny new interfaces? Will the author manage to provide distinct voices for each of the three player characters? Can all five games possibly ship on time? How long will Prick insist on showing you his bare bottom? Why did I even bother to draw it?!?

All these questions and fewer will be probably be answered in a very drawn out fashion as Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday oozes and seeps out onto the net over the course of the next year. Yet another game of questionable quality, available from TackyWorld Interactive, where the quality of our freeware is almost worth the price!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD (RAR Format) (11.7 Megabytes)

System Requirements:
Windows 95/98, 2000, ME, XP, or Vista
1 gHz Processor
256 Mb of RAM
DirectX compliant sound and video cards
100 Mb hard drive space

Rated "T" For Teen (not really, but it probably should be)
This game contains:
Midly Suggestive Adult Themes
Mild Profanity
Brief Nudity (You know that dream where you show up for work with no pants on?)
Cartoonish Violence

Plugins and other helpful things Used by this game
Andrew MacCormack's Save/Load Functions (the old AGS magazine one!*)
Steve McCrea's OtherRoom plugin
Scorpiorus' Rain and Parallax plugins
Andreas vogel's flashlight plugin

So, if you want to make me happy and make me feel as though I haven't wasted these last four and a half years developing this thing, then download the game! It's sure to bring meaning to my life!


Ponch

_______
*It's been in development for a long, long time!

[tube]

Awesome! A package of gut-splitting fun no doubt. And if it wasn't such a shamefully warm and sunshiny evening and I didn't have a couple of excellent, cold beers begging to be spirited away to the temporary safety of my bladder, I'd be glued to my screen for the next few hours (or however long it'll take to play through the game). Now it'll just have to wait 'til tomorrow.

I'm already chuckling, just thinking about all the fun I'm gonna have with Peckard this time. Thanks for making my day, sir Ponch.

[Frodo]

I just have to say... I LOVE this game!   
Ponch, you really outdid yourself.  Excellent work. 

Where do I start?
The night chickens are hilarious, and seeing Prick running from them has me in stitches. 
The fish bookclub is amusing
The whole barn scene really tugs at the heart strings.
It's really spooky when it gets dark.
And let's not forget...

Spoiler

Earl the ghost.    

[close]

His landing in Ark 19 was wonderful.

Spoiler

Cult chick in the lobby was a brilliant character. 

[close]

There are so many funny comments from the characters

I love the game control bit, with all the slidey bars.  And the Save \ Load bit with all the wee test screens. 

A wonderful game.  Thankyou Ponch.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Congratulations on finishing this at last!  I'll give the old one-two punch of doom when I get a chance.

[Play_Pretend]

*applauds* 

I've only gotten as far as the

Spoiler

bald chick

[close]

but I love this game!  There are so many badly written games with terrible humor, and it's so great to play a game that makes me laugh continuously!

Spoiler

I want to eat Roasted Night Chicken!!!

[close]

And the sequence of coming into the Dome was *fantastic*!  The robot that passes you in was pretty dang cool looking, too.

If I didn't have to go back to sleep, I'd keep playing it right now.  But seriously, awesome work, five stars!

[tube]

Pure genius from start to finish, just as I expected. Worth the wait and more. The whole sequence where Prick talks with the chief and meets harry had me laughing out loud, and that's rare enough to earn me a worried look from the wife.

Played it with "directors cut mode" enabled of course. Wouldn't want to miss a line of the delicious dialog.

PS: I hope the walkthrough you promised on your website will contain the hidden side quests and easter eggs you've hinted at. It'd be great if there was a way to make sure I've seen all there is to see.

[Play_Pretend]

Oh dang, you mean I might have missed stuff?  Seriously, stupid me, I thought Director's Cut meant like Director's Commentary, and I would have to listen to voiceover notes on why he made each room the way he did, etc.  Don't know what the heck I was thinking.

[tube]

You should have read the readme/manual.

[Ponch]

I hope the walkthrough you promised on your website will contain the hidden side quests and easter eggs you've hinted at. It'd be great if there was a way to make sure I've seen all there is to see.

There's a ton of hidden stuff in the series, especially in this first chapter. The Director's Cut unlocks some of it, such as Earl the ghost. The Adult Mode patch unlocks even more. Plus, some of the side quests you can unlock in this chapter won't even be revealed until much later in the series.

For example:

Spoiler

If you give the Used Air Bag to Roy at the Police Station, it will make Dr. Noriko's life much easier in chapter five.

[close]

Also:

Spoiler

Talking to Earl the Ghost (especially with the Adult Mode patch on) gives you even more options in part three when you confront the woman who was involved with him in the love triangle that resulted in his death.

[close]

And those are just a couple of examples.

Spoiler

I didn't even touch on the LobbyBot and his very strange hobby / collection.

[close]

I put in a lot of work over the last few years tightly plotting this batch of games out. That's why I went to all the trouble implementing the campaign code.

And thanks to Frodo and Strange Visitor for their comments on the cutscenes. Those things were a hell of a lot of work. No flics or AVIs were used. It was all done in game!

A simple walkthrough goes up on my site next month. I haven't decided whether or not to release the Easter Egg / Trivia list next month, or once the whole series is done (since so much of it is interconnected and a list now would really spoil much of what's to come).

Anyhoo, I'm glad the game is being received so well. Feel free to give it high marks on the games page if you're so inclined.

- Ponch

p.s. Strange Visitor, the two recipes in the Trivia List are my own concoctions. They're quite tasty!

[Frodo]

I voted for it in the game page.   

And I have to comment on...

Spoiler

The dream scene.  That was so hilarious.  How it started out a nice dream, cos he escaped the city, then turned into nightmare.  That was some clever artwork you did there, lol.   

[close]

And then his hair, when he opens the door.  I love it.   

[ThreeOhFour]

Hooray for this has been released!

Impossible to not love the comedy!

[shadyhtown]

Stuck..

Spoiler

Stuck in the lobby with the bald chick. Turned off the water and fixed the fixbot. Don't know what name to use to call the elevator or how to get out.

[close]

[tube]

Stuck..

This belongs in the hints and tips forum, but

Spoiler

have you used your DataLink (the small computer thingamabob in your inventory) on the broken bot?

[close]

[Play_Pretend]

I'm having a similar problem to Shadyhtown's...is this a bug?

Spoiler

Why can I not leave the lobby with the bald cult chick?  I've tried clicking everywhere around the exit door, and he won't walk out.

[close]

[Frodo]

Strange Visitor, it's not a bug.  You are not finished in this area yet.   

EDIT
I answered you in Hints and Tips forum - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=34985.0

Hope that helps you   

[Play_Pretend]

Thanks, Frodo.    But what I meant was:

Spoiler

Why am I not allowed to leave the lobby and go back out onto the street until I've solved the elevator puzzle?  I mean, I guess there's no point in backtracking since going up the elevators is the only way to make the game move forward, but it seemed odd that I couldn't leave at all even if I wanted to.

[close]

[Frodo]

Strange Visitor
I get what you mean now, but there are a few areas like that.   

Spoiler

As soon as you get out your car, before you enter building, you can't get back in your car.

In the entrance bit, where you give up your gun, you can't leave building again.

In the lobby, like you mentioned.

A few other areas you haven't seen yet.

I guess it's just to stop you going on wild goose chase.   

[close]

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I played through it and had several laughs, and in spite of the very, very, very long dialog sequences there was always a pay off.  Great work!

[Ponch]

Thanks, Frodo.    But what I meant was:

Spoiler

Why am I not allowed to leave the lobby and go back out onto the street until I've solved the elevator puzzle?  I mean, I guess there's no point in backtracking since going up the elevators is the only way to make the game move forward, but it seemed odd that I couldn't leave at all even if I wanted to.

[close]

Strange Visitor,

That's a side effect of my feeble game design skills! Most of my games allow you to backtrack and wander around. Other games, like this one, are more tied down by the requirements of the story, so every other area is sort of a one-way choke point to prevent you from going back to areas that are solved and locked off, or from moving ahead to an area that isn't ready to be unlocked yet.

I'm not crazy when a game tells me where I can go (and when), but I couldn't find any other way to focus the story and make sure the jokes (and Prick's slowly dawning realization about what was really going on) unfolded in just the right order. I'm sorry to say that the same thing happens in chapter two. However, chapter three is wide open, with lots of wandering around.

I hope I managed to justify most of it in a way the player can accept.

Spoiler

Example, Prick can't go home or to the police station until he delivers the luggage, so his car is just a background prop in that scene. Also, once he goes through the Bum-B-Gone force field into the RitzPlex lobby, he doesn't want to go back outside until he's completed his delivery, because the RitzPlex staff doesn't want him in the building to begin with! He probably couldn't manage to lie his way inside a second time!

[close]

I hope stuff like that didn't frustrate you overly much. I try to avoid it where ever possible, but I really couldn't find a way out of it this time around.
What can I tell you? If I were better at this, I'd be doing it for a living

Other than that, I hope you enjoyed the game!

- Ponch

[Play_Pretend]

Don't worry man, it wasn't frustrating, I just thought it was a glitch or something.   This game is totally freaking awesome, I'm  not letting a small thing like that get me down!