A Fistful of Gun

Lore & Background

A Fistful of Gun was developed by Australian designer Paul Hart under the moniker FarmerGnome. After moving to Wellington, New Zealand in 2009, Hart chose a Spaghetti Western theme inspired by Clint Eastwood. He first announced the game as Already Dead in September 2012 via TIGSource's forums, later renaming it A Fistful of Gun. The initial freeware version was released in December 2012, supporting up to three players on the same computer using different input devices. Hart posted a request for a composer, leading Surasshu to join the project later that month.

In August 2014, Devolver Digital announced its involvement after a Twitter user pointed the publisher to a video about the game. Hart had jokingly suggested a collaboration, but serious discussions led to a publishing deal. The expanded version, subtitled For a Few Gun More, increased the roster to eleven characters and supported up to nine players in offline or online multiplayer. The game was exhibited at the Indie Megabooth at PAX Prime 2014 and PAX East 2015.

The single-player story mode follows a plot where evil railroad tycoon Clayton Boon has made a deal with the Devil and must be eliminated within twelve days. Players engage in randomized arena battles with destructible environments, sometimes selecting objectives such as pushing a cart, dueling, assassinating a foe, or rescuing people from a stampede. Power-ups like whisky slow time and increase damage, while horses boost movement speed and absorb one enemy hit.

Reader's Guide

A Fistful of Gun received mixed reviews from critics, who faulted its repetitiveness and sparse online lobby population. The difficulty, art style, and sound were well received. Reviewers praised the game for challenging players without resorting to bullet hell gameplay, and both the art style and sound were noted as fitting the Western theme. The character variety was seen as highly incentivizing multiplayer, which some critics found more fun and less demanding than single-player mode. However, the online versus mode suffered from too few players, making it difficult to experience. The game's servers experienced outages during the launch weekend. A Halloween update titled Undeadorado was released on 29 October 2015. Surasshu released the soundtrack via Bandcamp on 29 April 2016, featuring one track with vocals by Eldad and lyrics by Eldad and Lee Williams. The 2012 alpha version remained available for free after the commercial release.

Did You Know?

• The game was originally announced under the title Already Dead in September 2012.
• Each of the eleven playable characters has a unique weapon and a custom control scheme for up to two of three input devices: mouse, keyboard, and gamepad.
• Horses in the game increase movement speed and shield the player from one enemy hit.
• The soundtrack was released on Bandcamp on 29 April 2016, with one track featuring vocals by Eldad.