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[Lachie Dazdarian]

Barren is classic point and click adventure game played through the eyes of the player (scene by scene movement). It's placed in a SF-phantasmagoria type of setting where you play a person of unknown origin stranded in a strange dreamlike place. It’s a relatively short adventure game, but features a fair of amount of cut scenes and cool atmosphere.

Download (Windows): http://lachie.phatcode.net/Downloads/Barren_v12.zip (16.6 MB)
Download (Linux): http://hmcsoft.org/fb/barren_v12_linux.tar.bz2 (15.4 MB)

Screenshots:



The project was started long time ago during 2002 (as a QB program) without a clear goal, which resulted in several aspect of the game being quite clumsy. The source code passed through several overhauls, and the final version of the scripting system was a nightmare to manage. Probably a wiser game dev would kill this project long time ago. But not me.

Anyway, download the game if curious and be so kind to post some feedback. A walkthrough with few Easter egg clues will be delivered to people who email me with kind words and with a proof they actually tried to complete the game.

Cheers!

[Lachie Dazdarian]

63 views and 0 comments.

[Terry]

Sorry, things are a bit intense with the PGC right now I remember this back when it was LONG! Looking forward to trying it out when I get a chance.

[Guert]

You gotta be a bit mroe patient to get some replies about an adventure game, it's not the kinda thing you try 5 minutes and your ready to talk about it. I'm pretty sure some will leave comments pretty soon

I'm gonna take a closer look at it soon, I'm curious to see how it turned out.
Later!

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I update the original link with a new version, and a new (better) Linux build. The old version had a bug related to one trigger not being reset properly. Annyoing for a perfectionist like me.

BTW, anyone had a chance to check the game out? Thanks.

[Jimbob]

I played this a while back but with all the PGC entries it was a bit of a bad time to bring it out :S

* MAY BE SOME SPOILERS *

It was weird, very unconventional in control and the storyline didn't really click with me, although some parts of it showed signs of promise but never fully delivered. I know it's sometimes best left to leave parts to the imagination, but I don't think I understood why I was shooting a rocket at some satellite, I just did it because I could and I couldn't find anything else to do. I think I eventually got three different endings (is that all of them?). Two of the endings just booted me back to the main menu so I assume I died or something?

The main thing that irked me was the switch between pixel art and more photorealistic stuff (one scene looked either rendered 3D - the one with the guy behind the barrels and the diamond cross) which took away from the general atmosphere. The puzzles were good in the most part, but the traditional metal bar that opens up one door and fails to open anything else are the kind of puzzle I'd hoped adventure games were past. The computer puzzle was quite well worked though, that was something I hadn't quite seen before in an adventure game (isn't it possible to run out of CD's though? I never bothered to try and waste them all).

I also wanted to interact with the characters more than the automatic 'talk' function (I tried the pipe on everyone with no luck ) but I guess that was part of the experimental interface. Maybe also the 'arrows' (which I thought were the most underused aspect of the interface) could've simply been integrated directly as hotspots on the screen where the cursor changes. In some screens its unclear which direction you are actually travelling in, leading to some disorientation.

I'm probably being harsh, but most of these points are due to the odd interface as a result of coding a scripting adventure engine from scratch (I assume it's FreeBasic). I bet you're glad to get it off your chest though Tis a long time to developing a short-ish game, any plans for another (more quickly developed ) adventure game?

[Akatosh]

Alright, I gave it a playthrough. Took me about 15-30 minuets to complete it, including wailing in frustration and randomly hacking numbers in the computer to see if they worked as passwords (2007 was the last logical thing I could think of, then I tried 1984, 1337, 666... no dice... ). Now, for the review.

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

As it's been said before, the game is very unconventional. I didn't really have trouble to grasp the general story, but I'd have liked to learn some more about the background story of the location ("Nobody left." - So where are they, if the village didn't start out with a population of maybe five people?). 
The puzzles were logical, in general. There were two "I-can't-believe-that-actually-worked"-moments for me, however - the password (actually, I was just desperately looking for five-digit numbers) and the thing you had to do in order to defeat the floating killer robot things (I mean...  ).
I simply loved the style of the game, graphics and everything. The switch between pixel art and pre-rendered was a little disturbing, but since it only occured in maybe one screen you didn't need to head to anyway, it wasn't much of an issue.
The interface was a good idea, and althought some hotspots were rather small, it didn't turn out to be a pixel-hunting issue for some reason. Whatever you did to achieve this, you did it well...
Kudos to you for the clean coding - I didn't encounter any notable bugs or glitches, and since you did develop this from scratch accoding to the credits screen (I was starving for five-digit numbers, mind you...) that's quite an achievement. Congratulations.

To sum it up, I liked the game, don't have any major grudges with the puzzles (the whole thing is rather story-driven anyway) and loved the background and story - reminds me of Kafka, for some reason. Isit (intentionally) kafkaesque or is that just the pretentious takling? Anyway, I'd like to see it explored further.

To sum up the summary, nice game. Plans for another one?

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Thanks for the feedback, but I would appreciate them being spoilers free. Couldn't you use a uber small font in few sentences?

Like this.

Oh, well. I'll answer to some your of your questions in PMs.

Yes, the style is on purpose like it is, although the game doesn't looks exactly like I wanted it to look like. There are definitely few clumsy moments there as the result of my weak pixel art skill. And now I regret for putting those two scenes from one of the team members whose style really isn't compatible with mine. I was quite desperate for some art at one point of development.

Not sure I like to hear it took you Akatosh 15-30 minutes to complete the game. You mean from starting the game for the first time to completing it? That's definitely a record. I only had two persons so far being very quick and it took them an hour +. Most other folks finished it by getting hints from me.

Coding the game from scratch wasn't must of a gripe. It's how I usually work. Love making game engines. But nice to find a community where this is appreciated.

New adventure games? Not in the near future, although I have quite few adventure game on my ideas list (do you have such a list?). I will try again, but with a much different and better planned start. Barren was a quite poorly managed project, and in the end I'm happy how it turned out despite that.

Once more, thanks for the feedback.