Hard West

[Clockwork]

Another Turn Based Tactical game! This one has a couple of interesting twists on mechanics and theme. As anyone that's read another of these will know, I love TBT games and consequently hold them to a high standard. Hard West could well be the best one I've played.

The Wild West hasn't been done in TBT much but even so, CreativeForge Games puts a spin on the classic six shooter and chaps by adding occultism into the mix. In gameplay terms this translates to cooldown based abilities.

It has a mechanic which stands out from other TBT %-to hit games which is the Luck system. To explain it I'll use an example - Kid Billy is firing at Redneck Sumbitch and has 66% chance to hit. Redneck has 100 luck. Kids shot missed and so Reds luck drops by the chance to hit, in this case 66. Now the chance to hit is higher than the luck value, so the chance to hit is greatly increased. Next time Kid shoots, he'll be doing some health damage instead of only luck damage.


There are a couple of ways to increase and spend luck, the most common being single use items to increase it and occult-powered abilities to drain it. This is where the majority of the mechanical innovation and strategy comes from. As a player you have to manage this resource which you need for offence and defence, a character with 150 luck facing 4 opponents would have the dilemma of using an ability which costs luck to try and get some extra kills vs saving the luck to weather the inevitable lead storm next turn.


Story wise it is broken up into 8 scenarios which are some classic western-type adventures in a choose-your-own-adventure style which link together either loosely or directly, depending on whether the protagonist of that scenario is a main or supporting character. And whilst I don't think that the main story can be influenced much from any choices, the individual scenarios play out very differently which helps give it a lot of replayability.


On the subject of replayability the scenarios each have modifiers to enable, things like an ironman mode (one protagonist death is game over), more or fewer combat injuries, regenerating luck and the ability to conceal enemy health until you hit them.


The tone is I think one of the things which some might find fault with, on the one hand it has some serious and dark themes throughout the various chapters but on the other it also has an eighteen shooter. Yes: a triple cylinder revolver with a single barrel. Don't ask about the logistics of that, I haven't a clue. For me, it struck the right balance of dark to light, dark comedy to light comedy, weird to western but I can appreciate that it won't be to everyone's taste.


I'd buy it again in an instant, £15 on steam plus £2 for another scenario as DLC. Well worth the price.


http://store.steampowered.com/app/307670/

[Jubal]

This does look rather exciting, hm. Tempted somewhat.

[comrade_general]

[Clockwork]

A....48 shot revolver?....Does it even shoot brah? That is in the game as well....I think it's called the Revolving Revolver. There's also a Revolving Shotgun.

[Jubal]

Whatever insanity you see made up in computer games, humanity in general usually got there first

[Clockwork]

Yeah I really should try not to be surprised

[Jubal]

See also, duckfoot pistols:

[Clockwork]

That's in there as well


And I think an 8 or maybe 16 barrel shotgun and a Mammoth rifle. Like an elephant gun but bigger.