It's High Noon
This is my PICO-8 remake of Ocean Soft's Highnoon, originally made for the C64 by Andrew Spencer and Steve Wiggins.
There are a lot more bullets on screen in my version and the gameplay is much faster. Also there are no abducted saloon girls in my game since they are all pretty much capable of defending themselves.
How to play: Waves
- Use the D-pad or arrow keys to move around.
- Shoot by tapping or holding the primary button or x.
- Hold down the secondary button or c to keep firing in the same direction.
How to play: Duels
Wait for the games title plate to vanish and the "Draw!" text to appear on screen and shoot quickly using the primary or secondary button. Shoot too early and you will lose a life.
Hints
- Shoot outlaws early during the levels to get a higher bonus at the end of a wave in duels.
- Keep moving around since outlaws will always shoot in your general direction.
- You can exit the screen to the left and right to reappear on the opposite side. Use this to your advantage to avoid bullets.
- From wave three onwards outlaws will throw dynamite sticks at you. Shoot the dynamite to kill outlaws.
- Horses (wave 4 onwards) can't kill you but the riders might.
The Bountydex
In duels you will fight a variety of outlaws with randomly generated names and titles. There are ten special titles that can be collected in your Bountydex by shooting them in duels. Since it is a chance of like 1000:1 to meet one of these titles exactly there are two ways of unlocking these titles.
Let's take a look at the second item, the Blind Barber.
Now let's say you meet a Furious Barber in a duel and you shoot them. Justice in the Wild West was just a word and since you shot a barber, the item will be crossed off your Bountydex with one stroke even if it was not a blind barber. After all how many wanted barbers can there be?
Now let's say you got really lucky and you meet the Blind Barber against all the odds. You shoot them and their title will be crossed off the Bountydex with two strokes. It might be not possible to meet the exact titles for the entire Bountydex but you are welcome to try.
And yes: many innocent barbers were shot in the Wild West.
To access the Bountydex press down on the title screen. Press up to get back to the title.
Bonus game: High-Low
There is also a hidden bonus game of dice. To access it, press right on the title screen.
You can bet on how you think the numbers of the next roll of dice turn out compared to the displayed pair of dice: higher or lower. Bet your money accordingly to raise your high score.
By the way: The more entries you got collected in your Bountydex the more money you start out with.
I actually researched dice games of the old west and it appears that back in the days people really played this game besides poker.
Update v1.1 Hotfix
- Fixed a bug where you lost all lives when you got shot after earning an extra life.
Update v1.2
- Added a money cap for the High-Low mini game to prevent PICO-8 from going nuts.
- Added a few more outlaw names for good measure.
As you are outrunning both baddies and bullets, @donswelt, may I suggest you have an option where you can shoot behind you.
Currently you have 🅾️ held to strafe shoot. Maybe add an option to have this OR configure if you hold 🅾️ you automatically shoot behind you instead of strafe.
That is if you are moving left then you are shooting right. This will make it easier as currently you must run to the target you are shooting in order to face them if you are not using strafe.
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@taxicomics: That's exactly what I want to do: Building a little PICO-8/Raspberry tabletop arcade with a hand full of small games :)
@dw817 I think that's a rather unusual request but nonetheless it should be easy to do. I need to update a few of my other games first, but I will add it to the to-do list for It's High Noon. Thank you.
Fun little game. I love the undertaker running around grabbing up bodies, and the little tumbleweeds. Great details.
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