''Gunfright'' is an
action-adventure game developed by
Ultimate Play the Game
Ashby Computers and Graphics Limited, trading as Ultimate Play the Game, was a British video game developer and publisher, founded in 1982, by ex- arcade game developers Tim and Chris Stamper. Ultimate released a series of successful games for ...
and published by
U.S. Gold
U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...
. It was first released for the
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...
in December 1985, then released for
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...
and the
MSX the following year. The player takes the role of a
sheriff in the town of Black Rock and is tasked with eliminating
outlaws who are scattered throughout the settlement.
The game was developed directly after ''
Nightshade'', and re-uses the latter game's
Filmation II game engine that allows images to be rendered without overlapping each other. The game received mostly positive reviews upon release; praise was directed at the graphics and presentation, but criticism was directed at the game's similarity to ''Nightshade''. It was later included in ''
Rare Replay'', Rare's 2015
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
retrospective compilation.
Gameplay
The game is presented in an
isometric format and set in the fictional town of Black Rock. The player takes on the role of Sheriff Quickdraw, whose main objective is to track down and kill a gang of outlaws who are hiding in the town.
[ The game begins with a first-person perspective targeting ]minigame
A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements, and is often smaller or more simplistic, than t ...
in which vertically scrolling bags of money can be shot at using crosshair
A reticle, or reticule also known as a graticule, is a pattern of fine lines or markings built into the eyepiece of an optical device such as a telescopic sight, spotting scope, theodolite, optical microscope or the screen of an oscilloscope ...
s. Shooting the bags give the player initial sums of money which can be used to purchase ammunition.[
Sheriff Quickdraw must locate the wanted outlaws one by one. Once an outlaw has been found and shot to initiate a duel, the game shifts to the first-person targeting minigame. This time, the player must shoot the rapidly moving outlaw as quickly as possible. The player can either wait for the outlaw to draw, or take the initiative and shoot first, which will make the bandit draw his weapon as well. If the player successfully shoots an outlaw, a ]bounty
Bounty or bounties commonly refers to:
* Bounty (reward), an amount of money or other reward offered by an organization for a specific task done with a person or thing
Bounty or bounties may also refer to:
Geography
* Bounty, Saskatchewan, a g ...
is paid (increasing with every round), and a new outlaw enters the town.[
Players encounter helpful residents who will point the way to outlaws. The residents need to be protected during gameplay, as the player has to pay a fine if any are shot by either bandits or Sheriff Quickdraw himself. Some outlaws are mounted on horseback, meaning that the player may have to ]saddle
The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not k ...
a horse power-up to pursue them.[
]
Development
The game was developed with the isometric projection game engine known as Filmation II, which was used previously in Ultimate's 1985 ZX Spectrum game '' Nightshade''. The Filmation engine was created by the Stamper brothers to portray 3D imagery. Filmation II used an image masking
In computer science, a mask or bitmask is data that is used for bitwise operations, particularly in a bit field. Using a mask, multiple bits in a byte, nibble, word, etc. can be set either on or off, or inverted from on to off (or vice versa) ...
technique that drew and filled holes in the background, allowing the game to create composite structures out of pixelated drawings without visual overlay, despite the limitations platforms such as the ZX Spectrum offered.
''Gunfright'' was initially released for the ZX Spectrum in 1985 and was the last game to be developed under the direct involvement of the Stamper brothers. Realising that the graphical limits of platforms such as the ZX Spectrum had been pushed, future projects such as '' Blackwyche'' and '' Dragon Skulle'' were handed over to designer brothers Dave and Bob Thomas, who were often uncredited for their work. ''Gunfright'', along with ''Knight Lore
''Knight Lore'' is a 1984 action-adventure game developed and published by Ultimate Play the Game, and written by company founders Chris and Tim Stamper. The game is known for its use of isometric graphics, which it further popularized in vid ...
'', '' Alien 8'' and ''Nightshade'', were re-released for the MSX in 1986, with ''Gunfright'' and '' Sabre Wulf'' being ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
to the Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...
later that year.[
]
Reception
The game received mostly positive reviews upon release. Reviewers writing for ''Crash
Crash or CRASH may refer to:
Common meanings
* Collision, an impact between two or more objects
* Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond
* Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating
* Couch su ...
'' praised the game's graphics as highly detailed and "colourful", but stated that the game was visually similar to Ultimate's immediately previous game, '' Nightshade''.[ Gwyn Hughes of '']Your Sinclair
''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993.
History
T ...
'' thought the graphics were the best aspect of the game, despite similarly comparing them to those of ''Nightshade''. Hughes also praised the game's smooth animation and the techniques used to portray the western town.[ A reviewer for '' CVG'' suggested that the game's style and gameplay was a mix of ''Nightshade'' and Nintendo's '']Duck Hunt
is a 1984 light gun shooter video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game console and the Nintendo Vs. System arcade hardware. The game was first released in April 1984, in Japan for the ...
''.[ Reviewing the MSX version, a reviewer for '']Computer Gamer
''Computer Gamer'' was a video game magazine published in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-wester ...
'' praised the game's plot, and was complimentary of the way the game was able to separate itself from Ultimate's previous game, which had used the same Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live-action programming for television from 1963 until 1989. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1962. Filmation's founders and ...
engine.[
Reviewers writing for ''Crash'' praised the gameplay, stating that the game's "element" was considerably developed and that the several different stages were "highly addictive".][ Writers in ''CVG'' criticised the gameplay, noting that they found it difficult to distinguish the outlaws from other male inhabitants of the town. They also noted the absence of puzzle elements which was considered "unusual" for an Ultimate game.][ Bill Bennett of '' Your Computer'' similarly considered the omission of puzzle elements unusual, but welcomed the "witty" change in genre from the previous dungeon-themed video games.]
Legacy
''Gunfright'' is part of an Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
compilation of 30 Rare titles, '' Rare Replay'', released in August 2015.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Good article
1985 video games
Rare (company) games
ZX Spectrum games
Amstrad CPC games
MSX games
Western (genre) video games
Action-adventure games
Video games about police officers
Video games with isometric graphics
Video games developed in the United Kingdom