I don't know who programmed this ♥♥♥♥ but it's genuinely one of the jankiest games I've ever played.

Westerado is a really cool concept, that the story is not pre-written and your target could be pretty much anyone. There's no predictable "It was secretly Your Uncle all along", there's no looking up the culprit and jumping to the end.

This is done by making almost every character built on a basic template of hat/jaket/pants style/color and body shape. Everyone is basically built by drop-down and color select. This strength however is also a horrible weakness, as it makes visually identifying anyone virtually impossible.

At one point in a play-through I was wandering around to expand the map and was in the mines. I came into a new screen and saw a guy in brown coat and hat that looked like he could be Generic Mines Bandit #62. I drew, I pulled the hammer, I fired. More dudes in similar dress came around shooting back, I shot them too. It wasn't until I shot the trainmaster that I realized my mistake, and that I had accidentally murdered all the ranchers I had recruited to clear the train tunnel as well as the train master, utterly ruining that quest line along with several others.

Similarly, the zones themselves lack much visual identity. Beyond generally being coded as Mines/Desert/Town, there's nothing to signal what area you are currently in, and it can lead to disorientation and mistakes (as listed above).

Having lower visual distinctiveness isn't inherently a crime, but this is a game where a single 3-second action can have dire consequences. Pairing the blurry identity lines, the extremely lackluster quest journal, lack of save points, and the High-Stakes Choices-Have-Consequences playstyle results in a game where it is all to easy to irrevocably ruin a playthrough.

While this game is extremely fun to play, it is also extremely easy to permanently break your save by turning any important character hostile. Because the game auto-saves you pretty much have to start over if you make any mistake.

The controls (especially shooting) destroy any fun this game might be. Woeful.

⠃⠁⠙

The plot is ok but the gameplay was not enough.

Not what I expected.

I played "12 is Better Than 6" a while ago, it's also a western that came out the same year and I thought this game was similar, but it's primarily about talking and not shooting.

Actually quite good game, especially if you are looking for a western where the story comes first, but western+story was just not for me.

Overly simple game, I didn't understand why this was so highly reviewed. I then heard this used to be a browser game which makes WAY more sense given the clunky nature of it. Maybe people used to play this and now have nostalgia.

This is an open world detective game, but it could have used a bit more polish. Wasn't for me.

Western as a genre is, to me, all about wide-open landscapes. A top-down perspective is anathema to that.

This stylized Western, with single shot pistol duels and herds of buffalo, didn't knock my hat off like it promised. Random events sidetracked the hero from his quest to avenge the murder of his family. Exploring a surprisingly robust open world (the player can kill anyone without breaking the game), the protagonist collects clues about the murderer, in the hopes of identifying them for a bullet in the brain. The developer combined grave charisma, with silly interludes, like the references to hat protection (hats are hits). It's lack of visual distinction, and leads on the murderer, left me lacking the will to saddle up.

Unfinished Games of 2021: Part I [awkwardmixture.blogspot.com]