Berney Must Die

Bernie Must Die is a homebrew game by Nop_ and released on 24 April 1999. It’s a first person shooter where you try to mow down hordes of Berneys and collect gems. It was released for the Presence of Mind ’99 competition.

You can get the ROM from its download page by using the password iloveyouyouloveme.

About Bernie Must Die

Objective:

Collect 4 diamonds to clear a level.
Use the Joystick to survive!

The awful one that corrupts the airwaves
with his seemingly happy demeanor is back
to blow your brains out. You must blow his
brains first. You’ve been warned!

Controls:

A = Toggle music on/off
Z = Fire
Start = Start game/pause
Joystick = view position
Grey Dir pad = movement

Special thanks to Dextrose (www.dextrose.com)
and everyone on #n64dev on efnet!

nop_

Background

To understand the premise of this game, you need to take yourself back to the 90’s. Every generation before the internet became mainstream had their own show aimed at toddlers that was on all the time that you couldn’t skip. Other examples at the time would be Teletubbies, Lamb Chop’s Play-Along or Dora the Explorer.

They were all parodied to no end, which a lot of people being fed of Barney’s “I love you” song. I remember kids at school singing “I hate you, you hate me, we’re as hateful as can be. With a great big punch and a kick from me to you, won’t you say you hate me too” every time Barney was mentioned.

So it’s only natural for someone to make a parody game of Barney and Friends, where you get to viciously murder the eponymous character.

Gameplay

This FPS keeps things simple: you’re dropped into a house with a garden. The garden’s wide open, but inside the house? A tricky little maze that changes every run. There are five angry Bernies on each stage who really want you dead, but if you collect four diamonds, maybe you’ll live to complain about it.

The first stage has you start inside the house with all the enemies and diamonds on the outside, but every stage after it works the other way around. The first stage is also the only one where the house has windows.

You have infinite ammo to play with and you can move, turn, and strafe, though strafing is a bit clunky. Bernies drop in one shot, but you have to land it dead-center. Diamonds not only give you 10 points each, they also top off your health, so grabbing them at the right time can save your run.
You don’t get any score for blasting Bernies, so technically you can beat a stage without killing them all if you’re feeling lucky.

Review and conclusion

There weren’t many full games made for the N64 back in the original scene days. In fact for POM99, this is only one of three ‘complete’ games that entered the competition. The rest were either unfinished, emulators or demos.

When it comes to the game itself, it is quite entertaining. The Bernies are merciless, shooting you as soon as you enter their field of view. The tank controls make the game a lot more frustrating than it should be, but the diamonds filling up your health makes up for it.

It is possible to strafe, but it is very convoluted. First you need to face the direction you want to move, then aim to the side, and finally move forward. It’s not something you can pull off quickly without a lot of practice. I ended up using tank controls for most of the game except when I was feeling fancy.

I like the randomness in the level generation. It makes it so that the game loop isn’t as repetitive as it would have been otherwise. It does cause there to be some cases where you’re ambushed by two Bernies at a time, but if you keep moving you’ll be safe.

Sure, Bernie Must Die can be a bit clunky, but that’s part of its charm. It leans into its ridiculous concept with just the right amount of goofiness, and if you ever joined in on the Barney hate train back in the day, you’ll be sure to get a kick out of it.