Barkley 2

Lore & Background

Barkley 2 was intended to be an action role-playing game that would combine the aesthetics and absurd narrative arcs of Japanese role-players with the openness of Western games like The Elder Scrolls. Players would control the amnesic cyborg X114JAM9 in his search for the character Cyberdwarf from the previous game. The storyline was designed to change based on when players completed certain content, with characters, places, and quests varying according to player actions. Combat was inspired by titles including Dark Souls and Borderlands. At a certain point, X114JAM9's true identity was to be revealed, and the player could choose to reject or reclaim it.

Reader's Guide

Barkley 2 was a sequel to Tales of Game's Studios' 2008 freeware title Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, which itself was a fan game sequel to the 1994 basketball game Barkley Shut Up and Jam! and the film Space Jam. The original game included NBA players Charles Barkley and LeBron James and made many parodic references to popular culture, styled after 16-bit era Japanese titles like early Final Fantasy games. While the original was turn-based, Barkley 2 was intended to be an action RPG, developed using Game Maker. Unlike the first game, it was meant to be a commercial release and avoid copyrighted material. A Kickstarter campaign launched on November 28, 2012, with a $35,000 goal, ultimately raising $120,335. The project fell into development hell; by June 2019 only two part-time developers remained, neither from the original team. A demo was released in August 2019. On June 11, 2021, the game was officially cancelled, and its source code repository with assets was released to the public under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

Did You Know?

• The Kickstarter campaign raised $120,335, far exceeding its $35,000 goal.
• By June 2019, only two people were working on the project part-time, neither from the original team.
• The game's source code and assets were released to the public under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license upon cancellation.

Origins & Lineage

Barkley 2: Revenge of Cuchulainn sits at the intersection of basketball culture, anime parody, and fan-made storytelling. Its direct predecessor, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden (2008), was a freeware fan game that spun off from the 1994 NBA basketball title Barkley Shut Up and Jam! and the 1996 film Space Jam. That original Gaiden game featured real NBA players like Charles Barkley and LeBron James, packed with pop-culture parodies, and was styled after 16-bit Japanese RPGs like early Final Fantasy entries. Barkley 2 was conceived by Tales of Game's Studios as the next chapter in what they called the "Hoopz Barkley SaGa" — a running saga of absurd, basketball-inflected role-playing adventures. The full title, "The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 – Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie," signals the same blend of Irish mythology, sci-fi, and sports comedy that defined the series from its very first entry.

Gameplay Vision

The developers envisioned Barkley 2 as an action role-playing game that would fuse the over-the-top narrative style of Japanese RPGs with the sandbox freedom of Western open-world titles like The Elder Scrolls. Players would guide X114JAM9, an amnesic cyborg searching for a character called Cyberdwarf from the previous installment. A key design pillar was dynamic storytelling: completing content at different points in the game would alter which characters, locations, and quests appeared, making each playthrough structurally distinct. Combat drew inspiration from both Dark Souls and Borderlands, suggesting a blend of punishing difficulty and loot-driven variety. Perhaps the most narratively significant moment was a mid-game revelation of X114JAM9's true identity, after which the player could choose to reject or reclaim that identity — a branching decision that would reshape the remainder of the story. Unlike the turn-based original, this was designed as a real-time action experience throughout.

Development & Crowdfunding

Unlike its freeware predecessor, Barkley 2 was intended as a commercial release, which meant the team had to steer clear of copyrighted material such as real NBA player likenesses. The game was built using Game Maker, the same engine that powered the first Barkley title (which also used RPG Maker 2003). To finance production, Tales of Game's Studios launched a Kickstarter on November 28, 2012, setting an initial goal of $35,000. The campaign ultimately raised $120,335, well above target. The developers initially projected a release window of late 2013 or early 2014. However, by late 2016, a staff member acknowledged on the campaign page that the Kickstarter funds had been exhausted, a tacit admission that the project had stalled. The shift from a small-scale fan project to a commercial product with broader ambitions appears to have stretched the team's resources well beyond what the funding could sustain over the years that followed.

Decline & Cancellation

What began as a crowdfunded passion project slowly unraveled over nearly a decade. In June 2019, a Kickstarter update revealed that the majority of the original development team had departed, leaving only two part-time contributors — neither of whom had worked on the first Barkley game. A playable demo was released that August, offering the community a brief glimpse of what had been envisioned. Yet the project never regained momentum. On June 11, 2021, Tales of Game's Studios officially announced the cancellation of Barkley 2. In a gesture that resonated with the fan-game community that had supported the series from the start, the team released the full source code repository, including all assets, under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license. This open-sourcing allowed anyone to study, learn from, or potentially build upon the unfinished work, preserving a piece of gaming's quirky fan-made heritage even as the project itself came to a permanent close.