Games with a rogue-like development continue to cause a furore among independent teams, either because they allow you to focus on the mechanics of their gameplay and not so much on an argument with a beginning and an end, because of how addictive they can be, the multitude of hours they offer, or simply because the market has not tired of them.  In general, they are defined by two elements: maps generated by procedures that change the game every time we come back from the dead, and a progress based on advancing, learning from mistakes and coming back with a slightly better prepared character.

Draw, Cowboy:

Death is part of the design of West of Dead, of its own history. Our character is William Mason, a dead gunman who explores the world of Purgatory, a hell that far from being inspired by post-apocalyptic landscapes with rivers of lava consists of labyrinthine caves populated by enemies. These locations are similar to the mines of the time - late 19th century -, poorly lit by lamps of limited power. Of course, the random generation of these levels makes the routes to be followed unpredictable, so on more than one occasion you will take a path that only leads to some kind of reward or confrontation, but nothing excessively valuable.

Good ol’ Roguelite:

The formula is well known, but West of Dead has some peculiarities. The first one is that we are talking about a third person shooter, upper chamber in most cases, with coverings. A twin-stick of a lifetime - pointing and scrolling with the levers - although not as arcade as other games of the genre. It should be noted that the combat areas are usually quite small, and the type of weapons, especially the initials, are of the style of the time, that is, few shots in the magazine and reloading time a little slow. You are not going to pull the trigger foolishly, it is important that each shot from a revolver or shotgun is accurate.

Gameplay:

There's a self-pointing system to tune our shot by holding down the fire button, but this also brings in another of the original ingredients of West of Dead: lighting. As we mentioned before, the caves use lamps and not all of them are lit, they need us to activate them. Many enemies are placed in dark areas and you won't know their position until it's too late, so it's a good idea to light up an area as soon as possible. Also, if enemies are near the lamp, they will be blinded by the flash and you will get a small advantage. These battles are a kind of puzzle in themselves.

Sound & Narration:

In the sound section, the narrative of actor Ron Perlman and the forcefulness of the weapons stand out, although the music - with somewhat generic Western-type themes - goes quite unnoticed. A pity because the atmosphere of this hellish place could be exploited more.

Art & Graphics:

I liked more the graphic aspect, very comic and in a way inspired by Mike Mignola - Hellboy's creator - because of the hard light and shadow games. The cel shading was very good and without the need for technical fuss, it caught our attention from the very first minute. The drawback? As it usually happens in rogue-like games, there is a reduced number of graphic elements, decoration and maps, and after a few hours of gameplay we may start to get tired of the limited subject matter of the caves.

Personal Rating:

West of Dead brings enough to stand out among other indies of the genre, either for its attractive visual style or some shootings that reward more cold blood than reflexes. It shares the peculiarities of other adventures of the style, its strengths - playable, a game is never the same as the previous one - and weaknesses - it can fall into the repetitiveness, the absence of a hand to guide the design of the maps. There are more frenetic and varied twin-sticks, but this one is striking enough for those of us who like action and have a minimum of taste for the development of rogue-like.

8/10 - VERYDISCO98