Buckshot Roulette (2023)

Excellently executed short horror game by Critical Reflex. Steam sold it in a bundle with Inscryption under the titel 'literally the same game'. Well, not quite, but the escape room-situation and playing a grotesque mini game with a mad man lurking from the shadows at the other end of the table is very similar indeed. I like that the russian roulette game you play with him is based on very simple stochastic calculation that makes the deadly bargain low key brainy. Of course that's only fun initially and gets old real quick and then you're done, but I love short games for my part.

Contrary to what I expected, this short indie title is more of an atmosphere thing I think than a game with particularly fun gameplay. It's definitely got a macabre feel with visceral presentation of its shotgun Russian roulette game in first person. I was a bit caught off guard by it, a bit edgy for me I think, but it's effective enough at what it's going for. I think the animations and gaps between gameplay decisions go on too long, but I guess it's fine considering the short length of the game as a whole.

The gameplay is based on that Russian roulette format, asking you each turn to decide whether to shoot yourself or your opponent based on whether you think it will be a blank or not. An additional layer of strategy comes in the form of a few items that can either aid you or restrict your opponent. So basically you are counting how many blanks are left and just deciding how much of a risk you want to take. In my brief time completing the game, I noticed the enemy AI make pretty strange bad decisions, but generally it was competitive.

I think this is just not that fun of a gameplay setup and not that appealing of an aesthetic experience for me. There's a little bit of room to make big risky plays with the items which can be kind of satisfying I suppose, but you can win easily through very basic strategy, and even if you get unlucky it's only really frustrating due to having to sit through some animations again. It's cheap and short, but I personally still somehow feel like it wasn't really worth it for me personally. Could be worth trying for others though.

My cousin introduced me to this game last night when we were chilling at my place and looking for games to play. I only ever saw the cover art, but never played it so I went into it almost blind.

The goal is to shoot and eventually kill the creepy looking dude standing in front of you, and most of the basic gameplay is calculating your chances on if you have a live round in your shotgun or a blank. However, the game gets interesting with the introduction of items; they give you the ability to do all sorts of things, like look at the current round, handcuff your opponent, steal his items, etc.

The graphics, music and atmosphere are also super cool, it really gives you the feeling as if you're in a gritty nightclub doing some fucked up illegal stuff.

In short, it's really fun to play for an evening, especially together with someone cause you can come up with crazy combinations to win! The only downside is that it does get old quickly, even with how fun the gameplay loop is I don't see anyone playing this for more than a couple of days. 7/10!