Bart's School Day (1.0 release)

The player is able to bypass the Cletus chase trigger on the way to the second Krusty Burger as the trigger radius isn't large enough to cover the whole block. If they hug the grass/houses on the left in the first screenshot show, they won't trigger the Cletus chase. On my first playthrough of this mission I thought the trigger for this stage was accidentally misplaced and replayed it with Debug Text enabled to figure out where the trigger was. I was jumpscared by Cletus chasing me the second time around.

In general, based on what I've experienced from this mod, it's a pretty fun first attempt at a full campaign mod with some minor grievances. The decision to have Bart be the primary protagonist of this mod and the story of the mod (Bart cuts class to be a little sneak) are both ideas that lend themselves incredibly well to Hit & Run's destruction-based gameplay. You don't really end up having to justify Bart's destruction because, well, it's Bart! Quite a few of the mission concepts also capitalize on this concept pretty well.

I also do think the mod has a pretty interesting concept with a majority of the missions revolving around the school setting chosen. After the player ends up clearing Mission 1, all of the mission starting points revolve around this small region. I think it does help enforce the central premise of the mod and almost creates an interesting 'centralized HUB' for the missions. Outside of the Bonus Mission for this mod, everything the player needs to progress to the end is right in front of them. It's interesting and definitely feels like intentional design! The Stage Messages still encourage that you follow the Story Missions, but the way the other optional missions are positioned in front of the player's vision after clearing Mission 1 feels like it encourages experimentation with doing the missions out of order.


The Street Races here, however, are re-named Challenges and have the gimmick of being full-fledged Missions with multiple objectives. This isn't something I mind and each play into the central theme of the mod itself. The original post also promotes these Street Race changes as entirely separate Bonus Missions as well, and given the mod is one Level long, I don't think this is a bad thing. However, the Challenges seem to have an intentionally higher difficulty than the Story Missions, with stricter time limits and more complex objective conditions.

It's not necessarily something I mind though since the Challenges grant the Open Wheel Race Car, which is leagues better than anything stat-wise you're given elsewhere. The complexity and higher difficulty became more understandable after I unlocked this, and it's a pretty neat idea! It's satisfying to give the player an intentionally overpowered vehicle as a pat on the back for having conquered the toughest challenges, balancing be darned. Players are still thrown a bone with the opportunity to buy cars from Jimbo if they need assistance completing the Challenges/Story Missions legitimately, and the picks here all feel pretty reasonable and 'in-character' for Bart Simpson.

Despite my above praise for the playground setting's compact nature, I do feel like some additional heads-up or subtle clues about the difficulty increase might have helped encourage that players don't try these missions unless they're interested in a bigger challenge or after clearing the rest of the mod. The difficulty of these missions was surprisingly high compared to the rest of the mod, which is also compounded by the more complex failure conditions.


I also feel like the Bonus Mission (the one mission the player has to leave the school to reach) is considerably easier than the missions present at the school. If the player chooses to tackle the Story Missions first, I think it's a bit less likely they'll return to this area afterwards and conquer that. They might instead be more tempted to choose the other Challenges since they're more convenient to access, is what I'm attempting to communicate. I didn't notice Comic Book Guy on my radar prior to trying M1.

The mod's difficulty past these challenges feel pretty decently reasonable, with a sharp increase towards the end of the run in Pranksters' Paradise (M7). The Cola Chaos (M0) intentionally eases the player in with a lack of any objectives the player can actually fail, much like the vanilla game. Once the mod began introducing timers, I found myself usually being able to complete stages that had them with around 20 or so seconds to spare. It feels like the timers start somewhere close to Level 3's difficulty, and ramps itself up towards the end. The other objectives (lose a particular AI vehicle, destroy this AI car) felt significantly more complex in comparison. They usually end up combining things in a way the vanilla game doesn't but feels more typical in other mods (hit this car and collect items while making sure you don't lose the car, for instance). None of this is anything I shun! It was an observation I did however make during gameplay, and I do like seeing this stuff experimented with!

While replaying the missions to get a nicer feel for them and to make more notes, I noticed that the mod seems to have a 50-50 split between Forced Car missions and Missions that offer complete control over what you want to drive. While the context for using the forced cars make a fair amount of sense, I feel some could be adjusted to allow for more player control. The half split in a short mod like this makes these Forced Car missions feel more frequent than they actually are.

Mission 3 has the player assisting Skinner to avoid punishment, but the player ends up returning to the school after doing everything like the other missions. While it's a bit less logical, it would be nice if the mission was adjusted so the player just had to go back to him with his lunch in hand. Mission 4 is also a Forced Car mission, forcing two back-to-back scenarios where the player doesn't have control over what car they can choose. Strangely, the car Nelson uses is the Ferrini, which is one that the player can purchase for personal use from Jimbo. Because of the player having the option to purchase this car, I almost feel like it'd be better to instead just let the player have their choice here as well. The player can then simply return to Nelson to tell him the deeds have been done, or he tags along as a passenger.

The mod's visual presentation is also pretty well done. The custom assets created specifically for the mod manage to fit in snugly with the rest of Hit & Run's vanilla artwork without looking too out of place. The damaged textures I ran into I know are pretty challenging to do well, but stuff like the promotional truck look great and the HUD icons also manage to look snazzy. No real complaints in that department and the Mission Briefings also accurately explain what the player needs to know before progressing into the mission itself.

I only have two criticisms with the visuals for the mod. One is a minor visual bug introduced with the Challenge hosts. The Challenges appear to have the intentional change of using the 'exclamation_shadow' marker as an indication they're available. This is also a pretty interesting change and seems to have been done to make them feel like more organic missions the player has the option of choosing. I should point out however that this seems to introduce a small visual bug where the exclamation point disappears after completion of these Challenges.


(The above issue was already pointed out by Sol ahead of time as well.)

I'm not entirely sure if it was intentional to have these disappear or not, but it does cause the purple shadows underneath the NPCs that give these Challenges to look a bit strange. I would recommend perhaps reverting this change so all Challenge NPCs use the 'checkeredfinish' marker instead. That, or an original graphic to replace 'checkeredfinish' is used instead to indicate to the player all 3 of these challenges are tied to one another somehow. Since the Bonus Mission uses the exclamation point as well, it might be slightly difficult for the player to initially piece together these are the Street Race replacements. Ralph also appears to still use the 'checkeredfinish' marker as well, which is an odd contrast to the other two hosts (Lisa and Nelson). I feel this might have potentially been done due to that Challenge simply consisting of a race with a timer, but I still think the inconsistency might catch others off-guard.

I suppose this would also fall under visual, but I noticed that the mod seems to never use 'ShowStageComplete();' in any of it's stages. A stage having this function in it forces the 'TASK COMPLETE!' text and horn honk sound to pop up after clearing the stage it's in. I'm also not sure if this was an intentional design decision or not, but I feel it'd be best to consider adding this back into a couple of the stages in each of the missions. It's a really nice minor bit of audio and visual feedback that makes clearing the stages more satisfying to the player. Having it after losing an AI car, for instance, I think makes it so the player knows exactly when they lost the car.

Music choices are also pretty good! I'm a bit of a sucker for Sonic Adventure's soundtrack, so it's nice seeing Red Hot Skull in here. I'm not familiar with the Cars video game, but the tracks chosen here are pleasant on the ears and very well mixed. The failure cues I did hear were also ace too.

The first mission of the mod I think serves as a pretty good introduction to what type of antics Bart will be getting up to later. I do appreciate that this mission takes the same route the vanilla L1M0 went and doesn't have any failable conditions. I think it's a smart decision since the player doesn't have a way to replay the mission without starting a fresh save and to ease the player into things. Having this take place before the school day really officially begins is pretty smart too.

However, I feel it might be worth re-working this mission to remove the use of the Family Sedan since it never comes back past this mission and creates a different first impression from what the default vehicle the player will have access to later. I had initially assumed from the preview screenshots the Family Sedan would be the default vehicle and jumped straight into the action, so I was a bit surprised to see the Honor Roller pop back in! I think you could perhaps change the context of the mission to remove mention of Homer and cut the chase with him near the end of the mission.

I also noticed that one stage message states 'GET BACK INTO THE CAR BEFORE APU GETS BACK!' is worded a bit differently from how Radical words vehicle stages. Usually, the vanilla game refers to the car that the player is driving as 'YOUR CAR' rather than 'THE CAR'. It's a really minor nitpick regardless though and entirely up to preference if you'd prefer to change it! I realize there are a couple of other stage messages that change this wording to be consistent with this message, so I realize this was an intentional choice.

This mission is a pretty fun use of AddVehicleCharacter! It's pretty satisfying to collect the students and have the visual payoff of seeing the school bus slowly populate itself. It's something that I think L6M1 (Going to the 'Lu) lacked. Having the mission run on one continuous timer also helps with the illusion of Otto having to be on-time not feel arbitrary.

While the concept of picking up the students is incredibly fun, and the concept of Otto forgetting to pick up Milhouse is humorous, the trip back to Milhouse after arriving at the school feels a bit unwarranted. It not only forces a trip back to an area the player was at earlier, but it's functionally not much different from the Ralph and Nelson stages. I feel I would either try to alter the Milhouse stage to have a 'gimmick' to it to warrant the trip back, or simply alter the mission so Otto doesn't forget about Milhouse.

I was also able to finish this mission first go with 2 minutes remaining. I feel trimming the timer by a minute might be worth doing as well.

I enjoyed the destruction aspect of this mission! All 30 objects were pretty fun to smash up and the objective itself was pretty well-balanced with enough time to approach how you wanted to smash the objects. The trigger radius' were big enough to be easy to hit, without being too big and causing accidental item triggers without destroying the terrain.

The Wiggum chase I didn't mind too much and I feel isn't too bad. However, I do feel it's significantly easier with the ability for the player to choose their own car in comparison to Mission 0's two chases. I think this is partially why I think it'd be wise to cut one of them and also allow freedom of car choice in that one particular mission. It also means the Wiggum chase would end up feeling more like a natural increase in difficulty as well compared to what came before it.

I also think it might be worth adjusting Wiggum's start position, as it's similar to Apu's as well. Having him ambush the player near the school I think would be a bit more unexpected. With both positions being so close, I think it makes the potential strategies a player could employ a bit too similar to one another. Make 'em think more on their feet!

I was also a bit surprised the mission doesn't do anything with the spray paint concept established earlier. While I think it's logical that Bart would be scared off to not want to go further with the plan, having nothing really earned from that the trip over to the Kwik-E-Mart makes it feel like the player hasn't done a whole lot with the second half of the mission. A stage where Bart actually does grab a spray paint can would alleviate this issue, with the spray can model just being a simple re-texture of the Buzz Cola Can used for the interiors (i_soda.p3d in art\missions\level01). I'm not sure if this mission or something else could be re-worked so the collection of this can has any sort of payoff, however.

I did also notice that in the final stage, the player loses control of their car once the 'MISSION COMPLETE!' message pops up. While it isn't a huge issue, I think losing control of the car can cause a frustrating crash that the player wouldn't want. There is a way to fix this by making your final stage one with a 'timer' objective that clears itself. L7M1 employs a fix like this, and I believe another mission already employs using this:

I do like the premise here of having to assist Skinner for his own personal gain! There is some interesting buildup with the player being asked to speak to Milhouse prior to speaking to Skinner himself and him putting his own personal gain above all else is pretty in-line with how he behaves in Hit & Run.

While the build-up to meeting Skinner is cool, I do think I would go ahead and use 'RESET_TO_HERE();' to force the player to spawn inside the school when they use Mission Select to warp to the mission, so they can easily get to Skinner quicker and thus start the mission faster. Level 7's There's Something About Monty (L7M4) does something like this as a quick example.


I also notice a small typo here in the mission briefing. I think 'UNLESS YOU HELP HIM' should instead read 'IF YOU HELP HIM COLLECT FOOD FOR LUNCH'.

The ketchup collection stage is pretty fun and well put together! I appreciate the usage of the Krusty Burger with the Fire Truck blockage as it doesn't always receive a whole lot of usage in missions.

Onto the next major area, the Tomacco stage is interesting, but it feels too similar concept wise to the vanilla game's L1BM1. I feel like the item placement should be a bit more varied to better differentiate itself from this particular mission. That, or an alternative objective. Like Bart having to fight the farmers for one of their harvests (kick this NPC a couple of times, then run into the field to collect the Tomacco).

I do almost think it might be worth cutting the secondary Krusty Burger stage entirely, or having some dialog/exposition in Stage Messages that explain why this trip to a second Krusty Burger is necessary. It can really be anything comical as long as it explains why this trip couldn't be preformed at the first stop. The 'fake out' Cletus chase is an interesting gimmick for the second Krusty Burger visit, but I don't understand why the player has to make this stop from a story standpoint. Some additional exposition I think would go a really long way!

A mission that stars Bart and Nelson working together is a pretty fun concept, and I actually quite liked both of the primary objectives here! Both the Apu hit and collect stage as well as the Burns destruction stages are a pretty fair length without feeling like they go on for too long.

I appreciate the usage of the distance meter for Apu's stage and I really liked the concept of having to outrun Burns' security. Both vehicles that work for Burns definitely pack a punch and actually got me on one of my returns to this mission!

Really my only criticism is that it's not entirely clear from a narrative perspective why the player is heading to the Kwik-E-Mart to grab the supplies as they don't seem to factor into the Burns stage. I assume the idea is that they're meant to serve as foreshadowing for the next mission (where Nelson hands over the fireworks), but I'm not sure if this will be clear to the player until later on. I feel the context of the Apu mission could perhaps be reworked to instead serve as 'lead-in' for the Burns stage. I'm not sure what ideas I'd suggest though unless the player had to steal a key from a character like Smithers to open up the Mansion gates? Then after the player grabs the key, they head back to Burns' Mansion to 'unlock the gate', and Burns and his henchmen are teleported outside the gate where the destruction stage begins.

This is a pretty fun and challenging race mission! I honestly don't have much in the way of notes for this one or any changes I'd recommend considering. It's a bit more challenging than what the vanilla game would throw at you in terms of difficulty as I found the AI did a decent job at keeping up here. However, I don't really mind this since the entire race spans across the whole map and no Story Mission normally asks the player does a whole race across the entire map.

I do appreciate how this mission initially starts out with the player being asked to do some platforming in order to reach Nelson. The decision to have the starting point rest on the roof I think does do a good job at creating the illusion of Bart snooping around under authority to make a deal with one of the playground bullies.

I would perhaps recommend moving Nelson to the side of the school beside the air conditioner trampoline. The only reason I suggest this particular change is that one of the Collector Cards are available on the other side and it's likely a player might grab the card itself while collecting the fireworks at the very start of the mission. I think having the card a bit more 'out of the way' from a mission objective would encourage exploration of the map later on. However, I do also understand wanting to throw the player a freebie Card! It's entirely up to you.

The idea of collecting the fireworks from back in L1M4 does make sense like I stated earlier, even if the payoff feels a bit delayed.

I do think both Skinner 'evade' stages could be changed, as there have already been 4 'evade' stages in the Story Missions played thus far and Skinner doesn't feel like enough of a threat outside of the increased chase distance. I think the context of the mission could be modified so Skinner had to temporarily run home due to something he simply forgot, Nelson somehow learned about this, and so the player has to race Skinner back home and place the fireworks before he arrives. While the mission prior to this did entirely consist of a race, I think taking advantage of the player starting outside of their car would create a greater sense of urgency for the player to 'hurry up' and grab the items needed/beat Skinner.

I do struggle to think of a decent alternative to the secondary chase, unfortunately. Perhaps the player follows Nelson back to the School? A follow objective on it's own does not yet currently exist in the mod.

Again, I really do like the use of hacks here to add additional passengers to the Canyonero! Seeing every 'bully' character come together bundled in the vehicle is a nice bit of visual payoff to the entirety of the mod. My only real criticism is that I personally feel as if the Canyonero could instead be moved to the School Playground instead of asking the player drive out to the Simpsons Household. While the player is told where to go through the radar, I do think that the drive to actually start the mission is very long. It also hurts the 'centralized HUB' nature of the other mission locations that I think the mod does efficiently. I think the context could then be changed to imply Kearney hotwired the car, perhaps?

The Skinner destruction stage I do quite like. I think it manages to be a nice step up in difficulty compared to the Burns stage since the player's vehicle is a bit slower, so Skinner is able to evade the player with a bit more ease.

The Wiggum finale is interesting. I do like that Wiggum is previously established as a threat in another mission and a chase AI car that you're asked to destroy is pretty interesting. I'd go as far as to say this is probably the most challenging stage in any of the Story Missions. This was the one objective I ended up failing first go due to the high mass of Wiggum's car making it difficult to find a decent way to 'pin' the car into a spot to hurt the vehicle. On my second run, I was able to get lucky using the Blue House shortcut. I think nerfing the mass so the player has a bit more of an advantage with being able to move the car into a more vulnerable spot would be beneficial.

The surprise challenge race that occurs during the Kwik-E-Mart is pretty fun! It's decently challenging and of pretty decent length without feeling like it drags on for too long.

I also do really like how the Open Wheel Race Car stage is intentionally anticlimatic. It got a pretty decent chuckle out of me in retrospect and I do like the acknowledgement the game does. The player probably also realizes this isn't the true end to the mission, so I think the stage works as a pretty nice midway point and a 'checkpoint marker'.

The stage that occurs after this with the player being asked to drive back to the School isn't too bad either. I think the timer could be increased to make it appear as if it's possible to get back to the School on time. In it's current state, I feel the current time is a bit too strict and the player can figure out something will likely interrupt the stage. I also noticed looking into the mission script that the checkpoint seems to set the same stage time again if they were to reset/fail. I believe this can be removed? That or the non-checkpoint timer is set significantly higher to give the player a false sense of security on a blind run:


Said thing that interrupts the stage I personally consider the hardest stage in the mod, and I ended up failing it a good couple of times. The truck that the player ends up fighting has very high mass. With the default Honor Roller, it's fairly difficult to wedge the Truck into anything where it would end up taking a lot of damage. That and the player has to worry about the Police vehicle chasing them and respawning ahead of them if they get too far ahead. The combination of these two things with the default Honor Roller made it a bit too difficult to play aggressively without worry the Police Car would spawn ahead and fail me.

I do recognize that this was noticed with the checkpoint that was added that I had mentioned earlier and it definitely makes the mission a lot more do-able. However, as far as I'm aware, this appears to be the only checkpoint in any of the game's Missions? I think the mod would benefit from a couple of extras as well (such as during the final battle with Wiggum in M7, the Sea Captain's fight in a later Challenge), and it's a bit odd this seems to be the only time the mod has such a thing.

The player is also asked after destroying the Truck to lose the police. While logical, I almost think this is a bit too cruel given the large difficulty increase of the previous objective. It can be a bit frustrating when the player realizes a minor slipup would force them to repeat what they did before.

As you probably figured from an earlier paragraph, I did see that little message you left!

This mission is pretty unique in that it's the only one (outside of M3) that has the player doing something that's morally correct. That probably balances out the sins I've created while playing this. Probably. Not sure...

I like the compact nature of the first fish collection stage. Both the small timer and small area work in tandem pretty darn well and I think work as a nice introduction to the core concept of the stage without being too overwhelming. The only thing that I think might be worth changing here is the fish closest to the school on the wooden bridge. The trigger for reaching the area is small enough that the player ends up bypassing that particular fish and has to make a trip back to that fish that feels a little awkward. The rest is really fun though with having to dance near the river death trigger. It reminds me of the thrill I get from riding my bicycle without my training wheels.

The Captain Supply Van stage is also pretty fun, though I almost feel like it's a bit too similar to the hit and collect stage with Apu present in M4. I kind of feel the mission's strengths lie in it's reliance on quick decision making and platforming in areas that have items scattered about. I almost feel like this bit could be cut, but I feel others might think differently about this.

I feel the mission manages to escalate the difficulty pretty nicely by increasing the quantity of fish that you're required to collect with the Power Plant stage. This was really fun and I had a good time trying to find the most efficient route here!

The bridge stage feels very much like a best of both worlds and a good way to cap off the fish collection. It has the same number as the first stage, but requires significantly more focused platforming to avoid falling off and failing the whole mission.

The Sea Captain stage on the drive back to the school is pretty fun. It's a fair bit challenging however, and the inclusion of a checkpoint in the previous challenge makes me wish there was one here as well to make the knockback a bit less harsh. As it stands, the player has to play a mission that primarily focuses on platforming/driving towards items. The high difficulty and contrast of this particular stage makes it difficult to return to after a fail occurs in my opinion.

I don't have too much to say about this one. Not that it's a bad thing, as I assume anyone reading all of this is probably a bit exhausted. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is a pretty decent challenge!

EDIT (06/05/2024): I'm a moron and didn't realize the title is indeed a reference to one of Ralph's lines in Lisa the Vegetarian. My bad! I guess it's entirely up to you if it'd be better to trim/remove the reference to fix the pulsating effect nearly escaping the Mission Briefing banner or not.

It might be worth trying to see if it's possible to shorten the name of this particular challenge. While I get the second part of the mission title is meant to mimic Ralph's mannerisms, the 'pulsating' effect the mission text has makes it so that it comes really close to escaping the Mission Briefing barrier. I think changing 'That's' to 'It's' might work okay!


(Unless the wording is a direct reference to a Simpsons episode I've simply never seen.)

I'm a sucker for pretty much any Jeff Albertson-themed mission, so playing this one brought a well-earned smile on my face. It's a bit less complex than the other challenges the game throws at you, but I personally saw it as a deliberate design choice given this mission rewards a much less overpowered, but still probably better than your Honor Roller vehicle.

I do like the mystery and intrigue that the initial 'find the seller' stage provides. From a narrative perspective, I feel it's a fun tease without feeling too defeating since it's right at the start of the mission. You really didn't think the seller was just going to hand it over, right? Come on, now. The seller being in such a shady vehicle and having a similar stereotypical appearance of a character that one wouldn't trust is also pretty funny given the stark contrast it provides to our friend Male 2 appearing later on.

The destruction stage itself with fighting the nerd was pretty great. I don't have too much to comment on here outside of it potentially feeling a bit easier than the Skinner destruction stage in L1M7, but I feel that's fair as well given this isn't the finale to the mod anywho.

The usage of 'near mint' for the unlocking message was also really cute! You've earned a second smile in the same mission. Not that this means anything and it might actually be a negative depending on how much disdain you have for me.

Call me a Bus Boy, because-uh, well, I'm drivin' a bus. That. Tha-That should be self-explanatory. Didn't think I'd be doing that again after M1, either! I do quite like Otto's Bus from a control/power standpoint though and it's the strongest vehicle in the game, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a mission focused solely on destruction that brings the Bus back for this. Especially since M1 focuses more on navigation.

I also do quite like the escalating difficulty of this particular mission, with each new task adding on a bit more. First you start with no real failable conditions, then you're asked to keep track of the next vehicle, and then the player has to keep track of the final vehicle while also beating the timer to the punch.

However, I do feel this concept is a double-edged sword that introduces a problem where the first two vehicle destruction stages simply aren't very engaging in the state they're currently in. The player has likely already engaged in this particular task before, or will have to engage in the task later to clear the mod. I think as a result, I'd add something in the form of a timer condition that the player can fail in the first two vehicle destruction tasks.

I was also a bit surprised to find out that despite being a forced car mission, there's no punishment for choosing to leave the Bus behind and the player can take whatever vehicle they'd like. I decided to quickly ditch the Bus to grab the 'Big Brain' Card that I had initially missed first go, but noticed there was no timer urging me to get back in. This feels a bit odd to me given the nature of the School Bus being forced upon the player. Further, due to the high difficulty of the vehicles you face, I'm not entirely sure how feasible it is to beat something such as the Monster Truck that pops up at the end with one of the Traffic Vehicles the player can use.

I managed to beat the Monster Truck with around 15 seconds to spare. I got a wee bit lucky, and an over-correction resulted in the AI slamming straight into the Springfield Public Library, which awarded the Truck with a fair amount of damage. I'm not sure if I would have won had this not occurred, but I'd have to do more extensive testing:


After beating the Monster Truck, I was also a bit surprised to see that there doesn't appear to be any reward for choosing to clear the mission. I was actually sort of expecting SetStagePayout to be used to give the player a little bit of spending cash. I would highly recommend adding some sort of reward such as this as otherwise the player really would not have much incentive to return to the mission after initial completion.

I think it might also be possible to technically get the incrementing timer/best timer functionality to work in this mission. I think if you were to have the final stage be a race that essentially 'clears' itself, then that's all the game really looks for when saving your best time. You could then have the timer carry on from the other stages just fine. I would definitely need to test this though.