Barney's Hide & Seek Game is a video game featuring the titular character of the Barney & Friends television series. The game was developed by Realtime Associates and released for the Sega Genesis in 1993.
The game begins with a Barney toy being awoken in the park when a group of children surround him, and he decides to play hide-and-seek with the kids. The kids all run off to hide, and now it's up to Barney to find them. The player takes control of Barney and navigates through a series of different stages to find the hidden kids, in addition to five different toys hidden in present boxes. The game is a side-scrolling Platform Game, but is simpler than most games in the genre to account for a younger target audience. What kind of actions Barney can perform are dictated by where he is, as he can only jump whenever there are other platforms nearby, while other objects will allow him to interact with them if he is close by.
The game features an extensive amount of voice samples courtesy of Barney's voice actor Bob West. Throughout the game, Barney will comment on the various objects and characters he encounters throughout each environment. There are over one hundred words and two hundred phrases, with many phrases being designed to be spliced together with other phrases to create different sentences.
"I see - some examples! - Super-dee-duper!":
- Balloonacy: Certain stages have balloons that Barney can grab onto in order to rise up to higher platforms.
- Band Land: Level two is Music Town, a colorful collection of buildings inhabited by various living musical instruments. Barney can interact with instruments to make them play music.
- Beary Friendly: The forest stage features a sad little bear that Barney can give a hug to make him happy.
- Bottomless Pits: Certain areas contain pits Barney has to cross. He can't actually fall in any of them, as if the player tries to move him into one, he will hold up a STOP sign and not move forward until a platform that he can use to safely cross is in front of him.
- Edge Gravity: Exaggerated. Barney absolutely refuses to walk off a cliff or take a jump he doesn't think he'll make, holding up a stop sign and saying "Stop! Wait til it's safe." It's not supposed to be possible to get around this, but with very careful positioning you can get Barney to actually fall in a Bottomless Pit.
- The Face of the Sun: The sun in the background of the Music Town stage has a smiling face looking down at the ground below.
- Foregone Victory: The game has no losing conditions, as none of the stages contain anything that can injure Barney, and the stages can be cleared without completing any of the objectives besides reaching one of the ends. Because Barney will eventually start moving on his own if the player leaves him idle, even doing nothing can result in the game being cleared. The only ways the game can end without the player winning are if they either actively keep Barney away from the ends of the stages, or if they shut it off before reaching the end.
- Gameplay Automation: If the player does not press any buttons for several seconds, Barney will start to play through the level by himself and will eventually reach one of the level end goals. Because there is no requirement for how many items Barney needs to collect to clear each stage, it is entirely possible for the game to beat itself with no controller plugged in.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Every stage contains five friends to find and five presents to collect. At the end of the stage, Barney will count how many of these items he collected, though the game can be cleared without collecting them.
- Green Aesop: There are points where Barney can pick up pieces of trash off the ground and place them in a nearby trash can. The back of the box lists this as a selling point designed to teach children how to dispose of garbage.
- Green Hill Zone: The first stage is the forest, where Barney can see all kinds of animals and plants.
- Happy Dance: Barney does a silly little dance to celebrate whenever he completes a stage. This dance appears in a few other places in the game as well.
- Mad Libs Dialogue: Barney has a variety of different words he can say throughout the game. The words are often spliced together to create sentences."I see - a present!"
- Multiple Endings: The ending has Barney and the kids hanging out in the park, where Barney says "Remember, I love you!" one last time, to the player themselves. If the player has collected all of the friends and presents throughout the game, they get a slightly better ending where Barney congratulates them for finding everything, and balloons fly up from the bottom of the screen and rain down confetti.
- Projectile Kiss: Barney can interact with certain things by blowing kisses at them. Doing so sends out hearts that float upwards as they travel forward.
- Respawn on the Spot: If you manage to sneak around the Edge Gravity and get Barney to actually fall into a Bottomless Pit (very difficult, since it's not supposed to be possible), he will immediately respawn on the platform he jumped from with all the level's collectibles gone.
- Solid Clouds: Clouds appear as platforms Barney can stand on in certain stages. He will sometimes need to ride them down from a higher platform so he can get down safely.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: One stage takes place Under the Sea, but Barney and the hidden children are able to walk around with no risk of drowning.
- Under the Sea: The third level takes place at the bottom of the sea, where Barney can see all kinds of marine creatures and search for the kids hiding behind various underwater plant life. Somewhat unusually for this type of level, the controls don't change at all, and Barney walks and platforms around the same as in the other stages.
