Being a (pure evil) business developer #10: Y’all, care to get yourself spooked out in the Ol’ Weird West?
Good morning dear readers, how are you?
It’s my first (pure evil) business developer’s blog post this year, so I should probably be writing about the great prospects this new 2019 will bring, new trends, platforms, plans for the next 12 months etc. It’s all very interesting and tempting, but our head of marketing asked me to write about something else, definitely less boring and predictable – the Weird West!
The thing is, we at iFun4all are currently working over an exceptionally curious game, called Ritual. It’s going to be a 3D top-down hybrid of horde mode, base defense, horror and twin-stick shooter, all set in the Wild West environment with unnatural and terrifying elements, suffused with a thick and nutritious sauce of a mature and complex story, exploring American myths and native-American legends. Sounds good? I bet it does, cowboy!
As our setting we’ve decided to pick a-not-too-much-explored Weird West. But what does it mean exactly? Well, there are numbers of references in the popculture, among novels and short stories, comic books, TV series and movies, and of course – video games.
So, to be completely clear, according to English Wikipedia, Weird West is “a subgenre that combines elements of the Western with another genre, usually horror, occult, fantasy or science fiction.” Think Deadlands, The Wild Wild West, Jonah Hex etc.
It sounds freakin’ awesome to be able to mix traditional Spaghetti Western tropes and archetypes with hordes of monsters from the native-American hell, spells and curses, Gatling guns and witches, gunslinging and sharpshooting with wrights and redneck-talking, you’ll see for yourself and you’ll love it, I promise!
Anyway, it’s curious that there haven’t really been too many video games set in the Weird West, but still, those which are mingling with the topic are usually pretty well-known (and some of them even got hell of a revenue too!). SilverLoad is already 24 years old (23 if we’re talking about PlayStation version) and probably not too many players heard of it, but how about Darkwatch, Blood and its sequel, Alone in the Dark 3 and the biggest of them all – Read Dead Redemption!
As Polish I have to mention a very well-done Hard West, a turn-based tactical game made by my friends from Warsaw – Creative Forge Studio. And as a fan of online card games, I strongly recommend Eternal – praised by both media and players alike.
Not too many, but some of them truly significant and more – this is what can be said about video games exploring the topic of Weird West. In my personal opinion, it’s definitely the most interesting out of all less known genres out there. It’s a great fun to learn Weird West, play Weird West and, hopefully, if everything goes well, sell Weird West to players who want more West after finishing RDR2.
I hope that I managed to wake your interest in Ritual. You’re most invited to go through our website and social media channels to learn more details and to keep thin interest awake, I have a wonderful and completely rubbish motivational quote, as usual. Here it comes: “Believe in yourself”, by Roy T. Bennett (and millions of anonymous people, who keep telling this cliché every single day and their children simply don’t give a fuck).
See you next time and if you’d like to discuss more Weird West, you know where to find me!
All the best to you, reader!
Jacek
