Barnstorming

How to play Barnstorming online

• Take off: press the Space bar, then push the up arrow to climb
• Climb and dive: up and down arrow keys
• Throttle: hold Space to fly faster, let go to slow down
• Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Choose one of the four courses: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
• Lower barn doors: F4 toggles the left difficulty switch
• More geese: F9 toggles the right difficulty switch

Gameplay

The screen scrolls sideways as your plane flies to the right. A counter in the top left shows how many barns are left, and a timer at the top shows how long you have been flying. Each time you fly cleanly through a barn, the counter goes down by one. Miss a barn and the counter stays the same, so the course simply gets longer until you have flown through the required number. There are no lives to lose: the only thing at stake is your time.

Hitting a goose, a windmill, a weather vane or the roof or inside of a barn does not end the game. Instead your plane is knocked back and slowed for a moment, and those lost seconds are added to your time. The plane never stalls, even when you release the throttle.

The four courses and the switches

• Game 1, Hedge Hopper: 10 barns on a fixed course
• Game 2, Crop Duster: 15 barns on a fixed course
• Game 3, Stunt Pilot: 15 barns on a different fixed course
• Game 4, Flying Ace: 25 barns, with a new random layout every time

With the left difficulty switch in position A, the barn openings are lower and harder to fly through. With the right switch in position A, more geese fill the sky. Position B is the normal setting for both.

Tips for a faster time

• Learn the course first. Games 1 to 3 always use the same layout, so fly them slowly a few times and note where each barn and windmill sits.
• Keep the throttle down. Speed only helps if you don’t crash. Once you know the course, hold Space the whole way and ease off only before tricky spots.
• Enter barns low and level. Most collisions happen on the roof edge. Line up early rather than diving in at the last moment.
• A missed barn costs more than a slow one. Missing a barn adds a whole extra stretch of course, so it is better to brake than to fly past.

The story behind Barnstorming

Steve Cartwright got the idea during his first week at Activision, when he saw a biplane towing an advertising banner on his drive home. Barnstorming was released in March 1982, and it is remembered for one of the first sunset skies on the Atari 2600: bands of colour that were hard to draw with the console’s tiny memory. Other Activision games later reused the same technique. Cartwright went on to design Megamania, Seaquest and Frostbite.

Like many Activision games of the time, Barnstorming came with a challenge. Players who photographed a time of 33.3 seconds or better in Game 1, 51.0 seconds in Game 2 or 54.0 seconds in Game 3 could send it in and join the “Flying Aces” club, which came with a patch. Reviews at the time were very positive; later reviewers found the courses too alike.