Ranslinger - EP9 - An Express Robbery

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In this episode of Ranslinger we complete the third and final train related level. This time the train is moving, which results in me paying significantly less attention to it most of the time. Makes me wonder if it loops and if so how often.

I really like the scene where Silas wanders off to the bathroom. Both for the speculation by his audience but also for the endless looping slow motion carriage. It was a fun way to spend time listening to the banter, certainly much better than freezing my camera.

I really should read up on Jesse James, I am kind of curious as to just how one would go about robbing a train running across the countryside.

Ranslinger - EP8 - Keep on Training

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Train robberies are another archetypical western plot so it probably shouldn't be surprising that 3 levels of Gunslinger revolve around trains and train robberies. It makes for some pretty linear levels, but a lot of door kicking which feels pretty nice.

We also finally get to find out just why Silas is so keen to track down Roscoe Bob Bryant. Gunslinger like a lot of games reveals a motivation for the player character that doesn't really have any reason to bleed over to the player. Sila's brothers are only introduced in a cutscene that also kills them off, there is no time spend developing them or interacting with them. They are a key formative event in Silas's past but I am not Silas, I am merely controlling him in the fight scenes.

I don't really consider it a problem in this game, because it is such a short and linear game and at least we have had time to get attached to Silas himself, had they pulled it off in the beginning then it would have been worse.

Ranslinger - EP7 - The Swamp Job

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Continuing the chase Dalton brothers after they robbed 3 banks in the town they live in, we pursue them into a swamp, but this time we have a posse of our own. I am sure that there will be no surprises here.

I like the swamp, mostly I like the way that the swamp is heavily impacted by the conversation in the framing narrative, changing the weather, environment and even the foes at one point. Again reminding the player that they are in a story being related over a pint in a pub. People fall asleep and other conversations and tangents show up, even at times where the storyteller thinks they are at one of the most exciting tense parts.

Ranslinger - EP6 - The Bank Job

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The devs got maximum use out of their bank assets here and the level hook felt pretty clever. A situation with confliction viewpoints and we get to play through them all, from how Ben remembers it fallout out, the story that made it into the dime novels and then finally the "truth" from Silas himself.

The first time around if you have the perk that lets you know secrets are near by, this level can be surprisingly frustrating as you are warned about a secret you can't grab until the next time you run through this area approaching from another angle.

The non-duel boss fight at the end is kind of annoying, not a great deal of cover and a big sack of hit points and none of the flavour of the duels. At least it was over pretty quickly.

Ranslinger - EP5 - Spelunking

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This episode has a couple of instances of the door problem being solved by moving rocks rather than a convenient final wave of foes. It is definitely an approach that Gunslinger leans on pretty heavily and gets away with it mostly due to novelty. If a longer game or simply more games tried this same approach I am pretty sure it would grow tedious and dumb pretty quickly.

The multiplier in this game see powers not just some of the perks I rely on but also determines your XP gain, the bigger the multiplier the more XP you get and the faster you progress. This makes the few points in this game where you get free extended concentration or just a turret and wave after wave of enemies are thrown at you really high points as you push through and try to take advantage. If you have the right perks at these times you can get a pretty significant amount of progress towards the next perk or two.

Ranslinger - Ep4 - Stop Swapping to Pistols

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Some of these levels are a lot more open than I ever realised before. I guess partly to allow for arcade mode and other more creative reuse of level assets.

It was really neat to find paths I had never realised existed.

The framing here is really just used to play around with time and introduce other little tidbits like it being Wesley Harding's birthday. Oh and to rig the duel of course. The first couple of times I didn't really notice, because quite frankly I was bad enough at duels that it never really occurred to me my accuracy was suspiciously off.

I think the key thing that duel is meant to teach you is how to dodge, this can be really important in some of the later duels. It isn't just a case of first to shoot is the winner.

Ranslinger - EPi3 - Mines without Crafts

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This episode we spend in and around a mine and get dynamite, which behaves almost exactly like a grenade does in any other first person shooter. You never struggle to light it, you can press the grenade button and out comes the dynamite.

I really like the trick with the mine, letting the player explore it and clear it, then pulling back to go around the outside, because obviously the mine would have been a bad idea. I am curious as to how it came about. When they were pitching the level did they have a couple of team members that thought fights in mines were silly? Did they come up with two ideas for tackling this level but didn't want to have half the level left unexplored by the general player? Was this just more fun than sticking the outdoor section on to the end of the interior one?

I would really love to learn more about how this game was made and put together. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any kind of post mortem of it anywhere.