At a time when the phrase “party game” has seemingly become synonymous with “Towerfall clone” or “trivia game”, Surprise Attack Games and Bandit-1 are hoping to shake-up the scene with Western Press; a “frontier dueling game” coming to PC and Mac later this year.
Like any good party game, the basic concept for Western Press is simple. Two players face off in a best-of-three duel, with each round decided by a series of 10 button presses. Finish your command list first and your opponents will meet their untimely (and temporary) deaths. Take too long and….well, maybe it’s just best if you finish first. As we mentioned, matches follow the best-of-three format and the command list changes each round. Best of all, an entire match can be completed in less than a minute. In many cases, since rounds can be finished in a matter of seconds, a victor will be determined in half that time.
Before the match begins, players choose an avatar from a list of 16 characters you’d expect to see in the Wild West. There’s a sheriff, prospector, a shotgun-wielding priest and more. Characters don’t have any special abilities; however, each member of the Western Press roster does have their own unique look. The attack and death animations also vary from one character to the next, as do the post-duel taunts. But there’s no need to worry about balance because all 16 characters of the Western Press roster play exactly the same. Quick button presses are all that matters.
In most cases, the studio expects fans to play the game using traditional gamepads, like the Xbox 360 or Xbox One; however, in a hilarious twist, the developers have also programmed dance pad support into the game. The studio says the idea originally began as a joke, when brainstorming ways to make the game stand out from the competition, but it didn’t take long for Bandit-1 to realize they were onto something. Thankfully, the team brought a few dance pads with them to PAX South 2016; because we’re pretty sure we had more fun playing Western Press with the dance pad than a controller. And we can only imagine how much more entertaining the game would be after everyone’s had a few drinks.
To our dismay, there’s currently no timeline for the Western Press release date. Surprise Attack is hoping to publish the game sometime in early 2016; however, they’re not ready to commit to a specific month or date at this time. In the interim, take a minute to check out the Western Press, then head down to the comments section and let us know what you think of the upcoming dueling game.
Western Press is being developed for PC and Mac. The game is scheduled to debut sometime in 2016.
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