West of Loathing

West of Loathing is a comedic western, made by the same people who brought you Kingdom of Loathing, the free browser-based stick-figure RPG. Similarly, in this game you play as a stick-figure cowboy/cowgirl in a black and white world. Graphics are not this game's selling point. Although I'm not complaining about them either. They may be stick-figures and such, but they're not ugly to look at, and everything conforms to that same art style so yeah, it's fine.

Anyway, you're not buying this game for the graphics. Probably not for the gameplay either, to be honest. It's basic final-fantasy turn-based combat. That is, You pick an attack, you pick an enemy, you do 22 hp damage, then it's their turn. Rinse and repeat until one of you dies.

So, not the graphics or the gameplay. Maybe I'm not doing a very good job of selling this game. Okay, let's talk about what it gets right. Firstly, and mostly, it's all about the comedy. It's a weird western setting where miners dig for veins of meat (as meat is the only currency in the land), where cows are evil hell-spawn and there was a war with clowns...it was a confusing dark time before you came to these lands. So the game is all kinds of silly. As the designer said, this isn't a game with jokes in it, it's a game made out of jokes.

But comedy is hard, and I can't say whether what made me laugh will make you laugh. But I think this game did a pretty good job. I smirked a fair bit, I even laughed out loud a few times, I think. So I'd say the main crux of the game does what it's supposed to do.

Another thing the game does well is it rewards exploration. The main quest can probably be finished in a couple of hours, but the side quests are where the meat of the game is. Lots of little hidden content to find, as well as hints at something more going on. Unfortunately, I have to say, that was also a source of frustration for me. I scoured every length of this game, talked to every NPC, tried everything I could think of, and couldn't work out how to uncover the big underlying secret to the game. Maybe that's not a bad thing, maybe I should have tried harder, or looked up a walkthrough, but to me it felt like there should have been more hints, the special ending should have been more accessible. Eventually I just got tired.

So, would I recommend the game? Honestly I'm on the fence on this one. I'd probably recommend checking out Kingdom of Loathing first, see if you enjoy this brand of silliness. Since it's free, you've got nothing to lose but your precious time. If you like that game, but maybe hate the use of time-based gameplay (you get new turns every 24 hours), then yeah, maybe give this a go. In the end, I played through the whole thing and enjoyed it, despite the fact that it felt a bit grindy at times.

3/5 stars from me.