Messages

Thanks, Candle!

Those links are just what I needed. They will certainly help until everyone comes to their senses and find better games to download!

- Ponch

Hello all,

Some of you may know me as the Barn Runner guy. Of course, some of you may not. (In that case, "Hello, I'm the Barn Runner guy".)

Well, as part of "Release Something Day", I posted a short movie for my upcoming game. I received a lot of positive e-mails about it and it seemed to be a generally well-liked submission for the occasion.

This may be the reason that my last game has experienced a significant bump in traffic. Since last Saturday, my old game has been downloaded about 11,000 times* more than I expected. Between the regular game page and this site (that has opted to bypass my download counter. Thanks a bunch, guys ), traffic is way up and this has caught me off guard.

I've received quite a few e-mails in the last couple of days from people who were trying to download the game but my regular download link wasn't responding or took a long time to respond. The traffic may be a bit too much for my free provider.

Would anybody be kind enough to mirror my game for a little while. At least until this passes? It might help ease the pressure a bit until everyone comes to their senses and realizes that they're downloading a Barn Runner game, for God's sake and they really have better things to do with their free time than that!

The file is only 7 mbs (or thereabouts) and I promise it's house trained. It won't shred your couch or track up that nice rug you have that really pulls the room together. It doesn't eat much and requires little attention. It just needs a home for a while. (Warning: Obvious grab at sympathy!)

Can anybody help me? I would greatly appreciate it.

- Ponch

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* Of course, I may be completely misunderstanding what I'm looking at. That's happened with traffic lights. Still, e-mail complaints seem straightforward enough.

[exactly]

I was gonna write how much I disagreed with this notion, but I couldn't find expletives strong enough

Which is exactly why it would be such a riveting interview!

- Ponch


UPDATE!

Make yure you find them by Friday, because that's when I'm posting it...

Awesome! If this turns out to be a hoax, then I'll have lost all faith in humanity!

Can't we have our cake and eat it too? If Vince wants to do a monthly interview thread with whichever AGS superstar that strikes his fancy, then where's the harm in that?

It's not as though it's going to make Vel's eZine obsolete. Those interviews seem to be of a completely different flavor than this one was and, if anything, two spotlight formats would expose more of us to the larger AGS community than one.

And for all of you lining up ready to answer questions, this means that your chance at fifteen minutes of fame will have doubled! 

Personally, I would like to see what makes some of the more mysterious AGSers tick. Not all the interviews have to be with the obvious people. The thought of Twelve Interviews #2: Flukeblake makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. It might be a trainwreck or it might be really insightful look into one of the forums most misunderstood members. Either way, it would sure as hell be good entertainment! 

I agree that it doesn't have to be "sticky-ed" (is that a word?) but I'm willing to bet that if the people being interviewed are interesting enough then the thread will generate enough responses to keep in on the front page for a while.

Just my two cents, but I'd really like to see this thing continued.

- Ponch

[always]

Well, it took me most of the morning, but I've finally managed to take a look at everything everyone posted and I'm really impressed with all the screenshots, music and demos. Now if these games would actually get released one day, everyone would be the better for it.

I have to admit, I was hoping for a few more playable demos (I'm looking at you, Kinoko) but I guess I can't point fingers at anyone since all I posted was a movie. Even Bernie's non-AGS platform game has proved to be ridiculously addictive.

All in all, I'm really impressed with how this turned out. I second the earlier notion (posted by myself) that we should do this a couple of times a year. It might help keep everyone "on track" and working on their games. Maybe next time there could be an Aldora demo. I'm curious how an old school NES-styled rpg will play on AGS.

Anyhoo, great work, everyone!

Ponch

p.s. Vince, it's always all about me. If you'd asked me, I could have told you that! 

Strange. Does QuickTime open it by any chance? I just tried it on my laptop and it opened just fine.

Anyhoo, I'll see if I can slap together a Divx codec version later and post that as soon as I can. Sorry for the problems.

- Ponch

This has been the most interesting read I've had on these forums in a while. We should do this a couple of times a year. "Release Something Day - Summer" and "Release Something Day - Winter" or something like that.


Vince:
That's "Ponch", baby! Potch is that other guy (the guy who wasn't on CHiPs"!). "Ponch" needs all the press he can get ;-)
Thanks for the kind words but Frink is really the key to my success. Celebrity endorsement moves product!
Nice graphics and cool menu screen. It's always a good idea to keep the rat poison by the cereal. What could go wrong?

Guybrush:
Did you try both download versions? Are they both coming through corrupt or is the video just not playing? Is anyone else having this problem? According to the research I did, as of March 2005, CinePak was the most common codec available. It is the default codec for both the Window Player and QuickTime. If anyone else has this problem I can try a different codec.
Nice offering. Donut physics! This has to be a first in AGS! (Mmmmm, donuts...)

All in all, this has been a great idea so far and everyone's posts look fantastic. But where is Kinoko?

Wasn't this her idea? Has she been abducted? Is there some sort of foul play afoot?

Oh and Ponch.. There's no green there! WTF that's unnatural.

Tell me about it. I used to live in southern California. Ocean, surfing, temperate weather. Now I live in the high desert of west Texas.

Funny how life turns out sometimes.

This is fascinating seeing where everyone lives. Surely this will come in handy when I'm standing trial for something or other one day!

Cameron - Nice brooding piece. Is that the theme song for your game?

Dave - Thanks for the kind words. The game is sort of my homage to all the games I loved as a kid. Not just adventure games but also stuff like Spy Hunter and Operation Wolf. The three reloading animations are the only three weapons you have in the game but all those sequences along with the flying sequences are completely optional. The game even plays out slightly differently if you opt to disable them from the menu so it won't feel like something was "chopped out".

I'm playing the Without a Prayer demo. Very cool. If more preachers built tabernacles like that I might go to church more often! I'm stuck in the jail at the moment but I'll tackle it with a fresh perspective tomorrow. Have to take my SO to see Batman tonight.

Any idea when Without a Prayer will be released?

Hopefully, all the Release Something offerings will be as good as the ones I've seen so far!

- Ponch

In honor of our long, hallowed tradition of "Release Something Day", I am submitting a movie for my upcoming Barn Runner: The Forever Friday. It is in AVI format and compiled with the CinePak codec - the most generic codec of all so everyone can enjoy it! Hopefully, this will spark interest in my upcoming game and everyone can appreciate how truly magnificent it will be! *

But don't take my word for it. Read what this highly credible and completely unbiased fictional person had to say after seeing The Forever Friday Teaser Movie.

Professor John Frink

[/b]

Expert in the field of microcalifragalistics,
Inventor of the Frinkahedron and
D-List celebrity shill.

Everyone, if I may have your attention please. As you will see, this preview clearly demonstrates the awesome potential for enjoyment the as-yet-to-be-released game "The Forever Friday" may - and indeed could - provide.

Sure to surpass even the lowest of expectations, this game features Barn Runner's trademark hand-drawn animation and Colorformâ,,¢ inspired design with the bold outlines and the primary colors and the little people... just stick them where ever you want them... with the licking... they just stick right there... Unsanitary.

Where was I? Oh, yes!

The Hype-O-Meter is off the chart here! This game will be so HUGE that it will require some sort of "Debigulator" simply to permit it to fit on the internet without displacing all the pornography and poorly-informed political opinions that are clogging your browsers even as we speak!

Good glayvyn, people! What are you waiting for? Start right now with the clicking and the downloading and the watching at the low, low price of free! **

You can't argue with phony testimony like that! Just click below to start the Barn Runner experience.

The movie is available in two different forms of compression (or "Debigulation", if you will): ZIP and RAR. And there is a mirror available for each type. Just click whichever one suits you and download away!

RAR Format (3.64 Megabytes)
(Mirrored Here)

ZIP Format (4.87 Megabytes)
(Mirrored Here)

Once unpacked (i.e. "Rebigulated") the movie is 25.2 Megabytes.

I hope you enjoy it!



---------------
* Game may not actually be magnificent
** Professor Frink is © FOX and its related companies and is used without permission. He in no way endorses this product and/or service.

Here is the dusty cowtown I've spent the last couple of years in.

God, once I've seen this place from such a vantage point, I dislike it even more. Two more years and I can ditch these tumbleweeds and cow skulls bleaching in the sun and get back to someplace with surf.

Counting the days,

Ponch

Cool interview. Great idea Vince Twelve. I look forward to reading future installments of this. Congratulations on the baby on the way!

Have fun in Japan, Kinoko. Ignore all the whiny "this place isn't what I thought it would be" crap some people post on the net. I loved every day I spent there and you probably will too.

Drink all the Koo (or is it Qoo?) you can, you won't find it anywhere else. At least it isn't to be found here in the States. Granted, I haven't been to Japan in years but I still get the random craving for that stuff.

For everyone else living over there right now, a question: After a while, did you find your native language skills degrading? Or was that just me?

Barbarian, I was last in Hong Kong in 93. Has Hong Kong changed greatly since the changeover or are things still pretty much the same there? Just curious.

Again, these interviews are a nice idea. I hope they have a long run ahead of them.

- Ponch

Showing my age here, I know, but adventure games are like punk music.Ã,  The best music trends always occur underground and get the life sucked out of them once all the major labels start incorporating "The _____ Sound" (insert the region of choice here: Seattle, Detroit, West Coast, whatever) into all their new acts. Stip mine an authentic movement and prepackage it for easy consumption... at least until something newer comes along.

Right now some of the best things in gaming are happening in the DIY community. Hell, the better Half Life mods I played recently were more enjoyable that HL2 was! That thing had a fortune behind it and the best it managed IMO was to be a mediocre shadow of the original HL game.

LucasArts made some of the best games once upon a time (and not just adventure games, either) but look at them now. The only interesting Star Wars game on the horizon is the DIY Shadows of the Empire game! What does that say about LucasArts? What does that say about the indie game developers?

The gaming industry is trying desperately to "Hollwood-ize" itself and just like the movie biz, is turning out sequels to what already sold or remaking what was once good. The Honeymooners? House of Wax? These were fine the first time around but why remake them? Do we really need a xXx 2? Or The Fast and the Furious 3?Ã,  The gaming biz isn't interested in anything except that which has already succeeded. Think it will get any better any time soon?

Nah, the good ideas are coming out of the underground right now. This stuff goes in cycles and eventually the guys at the top will wise up and invest in ideas again. But for the moment, it's the little dudes and dudettes like us who can actually put good ideas out there for people to enjoy.

This may be the DIY gamer's golden age.

Ya never know.

- Ponch

I agree with Kinoko. I dislike the idea of points and can't imagine a scenario where I would ever review a game. I'm terrible at those sorts of things. My review would be something like:

"I liked it only quite a bit. The end."

If the AGS community wants a user review system that's better than the user comments on the individual game pages, then that's cool. Everyone who wants to review will and those of us that don't write reviews don't lose anything due to our lack or incentive or weak natural reviewing abilitites (there may be a genetic link, you know).

I mean I like Two of a Kind and Cirque De Zale. They were probably my favorite games of last year (after Barn Runner, of course  ) but I don't think I ever posted anything in their threads to that effect... or anywhere on these boards for that matter.

I'm all for user reviews and everything should be done to facilitate them if that's what people want. I just doubt I'll contribute, that's all. More power to those that do.

- Ponch

Hi there, Jozef. Thanks for de-lurking and thanks for all the work you do at DIY Games. Most of the games I download were the ones you rated highly.

Thanks also for the great reviews you game the Barn Runner games. They made my day!

- Ponch

Cool trailer Ahmet! I had to jack my gamma up though. I couldn't see anything except the blue text the first time through.

But with everyone releasing stuff when we're still weeks away from the deadline, it seems like there will only be a handful of us who actually release something on "Release Something Day"!

This feels like opening my Christmas presents early!

Sounds good. I'll be there with bells on.

I just clicked the link and I got the Holiday Special in quicktime goodness. Do you have quicktime installed? Or maybe the link was down for a while. As of this moment, it seems to be working just fine.

Try again. The Holiday Special is not to be missed! The power of Life Day compels you!

Sure, I'm in. I just released a batch of screenshots for my next game on my website but I could probably find something else to push out into the world.

If nothing else, it would inspire me to stay on track and make my release date.

Good idea. Count me in!

Lifeday!

God, I remember the Holiday Special. As a kid, my love of Star Wars was so great that even the awful, awful Holiday Special couldn't dim it. I look back on it now and I giggle at how BORED Harrison Ford looks and how high Carrie Fisher is. Mark looks pretty high (and painted up like a cheap whore) but I think he was on pain killers at the time.

Wookiee VR cybersex! Hee Hee!

Oh, and so as not to derail this thread completely, I really like Episode III. Obi Wan is the man! It still didn't have the impact that the first ones did, though in fairness, I was just a kid when they came out.

Still, watching that "A long time ago..." come up on the screen for the last time ever, I couldn't help but think that a door had closed in my life and that this moment might be the first step on the road to my mid-life crisis.

Sniffle.