West of Loathing

[Korax]

 

Friends of the network Asymmetric released West of Loathing yesterday! It's a single-player wild west fantasy game replete with the stick figures and joke stylings of Kingdom of Loathing, and it's about 10 bucks right now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/597220/West_of_Loathing/

 

I've had fun with the hour or so I've played thus far, and it runs great on my Win10 tablet/netbook, so it's easy to play a bit during my lunch break and bus rides.

[Badfinger]

I'm so excited for this game, and very happy for Asymmetric. By all accounts it's pretty good and extremely funny, which is the right level of each I was hoping for. I've listened to a bit of the sound track as well, and it's quite good.

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/08/11/west-of-loathing-review/

[fondue]

I'm about 5 hours in and it's just so nice to play. I'm going to Remo my way through it, first sure - the writing is too enjoyable not to. 

[DocRandal]

I finished it!  Loved the end credits. I'm missing a few hats and didn't solve a couple minor mysteries but I got the important side quests done.

[Cleinhun]

I'm a couple hours in and I have to say I'm impressed with this one. It's the kind of game that makes it easy to overlook it's flaws. On paper, the fact that the combat is so haphazard  should be a big deal in a game with this much combat, but it hasn't led to be being bored or annoyed at any point so it feels like a pointless criticism. I think the fact that the writing is so consistently good is what makes this game work, every side area is worth exploring because you know something amusing will happen even if you don't get anything useful from it..Even the combat has some decent visual gags, like how Doc Alice heals you by dumping a bad of medical supplies on your head.

 

My favorite joke so far is when you ask the circus vendor for a vegetarian option: "this is a carnival, not a herbival"

[sclpls]

This game is hilarious. So is the Video Games Hot Dog podcast.

[Reyturner]

I laugh out loud every time I play it. It's wonderful. 

 

Also, pro tip: any time anyone starts saying specific numbers, write them down! 

[sclpls]

I wrote a program in Javascript to solve the Soupstock Lode puzzle. What a good video game.

[Kyir]

Without giving too much away, I'm grumpy about the 3 dynamite nonsense in the prologue.

 

Other than that, I had a lot of fun with this game. I feel like resorting to combat quickly probably denied me some good jokes though.

[Nappi]

I finished the main game, but still have a couple of open side missions and a bunch of locations to discover (at least I think so). The writing and the art style were funny and charming, and the length of the game felt about right. I wish the combat had been as interesting and inventive as the rest of the game. Because I did not want to spend a lot of time managing my equipment, optimizing my food and drink consumption, or grinding for XP, I ended up killing the tougher one-hit-and-you-are-just-about-dead enemies by spamming dynamites and other items. I'm happy that the game let me do that, but I would have preferred for the combat to be engaging in the first place.

[ratamero]

I've played about 6h of this game and I am enjoying it a lot! I'm still to open up the coastal area and I'm trying to follow as many side quests as I can, but it still feels like there is a lot of stuff I'm missing and a lot of ways things could have gone differently up to now, which I love. I might jump into a second playthrough with a different class as soon as I finish it.

[Badfinger]

At one point, the devs jokingly referred to the game as "stick figure Skyrim", and I think I agree with them. Mostly because I care about some of the more involved side quests than i care about the main quest (ooh, sick burn). Seriously, the game is lovely. I have barked with laughter, chuckled, chortled, guffawed, and snickered. Some of the puzzles are harder than I will ever care to attempt, but they're all lovingly crafted. It's a great game.

[neonrev]

The devs did a weekly Q&A radio show/podcast about their MMO KOL for many years, and made a West of Loathing focused one that is very open about the development process, who did what, financial and sales matters (they wildly exceeded both expectations and what they considered the 'necessary' sales for the game to be a success for them. Basically, since they have the MMO and part of this game's cost was creating an engine that makes creating new content very easy, they don't have to break even for them to be able to keep the studio together and maybe even hire on another person.), and some puzzle design stuff without getting too terribly spoiler-y.

http://shows.kingdomofloathing.com/The_KoL_Show_20170817.mp3


Personally, as a huge fan of these guys for more than a decade, it's hugely gratifying to see them find some decent success in the indie scene and to know that they are energized and eager to work on some DLC, add free holiday event updates and new games in this engine. Their last major game was a pretty serious flop for them both financially and creatively and they seemed really beat down by it, it's good to see them feeling so great about this one.

[Cleinhun]

  On 8/21/2017 at 6:24 PM, Badfinger said:

At one point, the devs jokingly referred to the game as "stick figure Skyrim", and I think I agree with them. Mostly because I care about some of the more involved side quests than i care about the main quest (ooh, sick burn). 

I believe what they specifically said was "it's like Skyrim with beans". And based on how they've talked about Skyrim on Video Games Hot Dog, I suspect that the idea that the side quest would be most interesting part of the game was what they were intending to suggest.

 

  On 8/21/2017 at 11:05 PM, neonrev said:

The devs did a weekly Q&A radio show/podcast about their MMO KOL for many years, and made a West of Loathing focused one that is very open about the development process, who did what, financial and sales matters

http://shows.kingdomofloathing.com/The_KoL_Show_20170817.mp3

I want to second this recommendation,  this is absolutely worth listening to. It's really interesting to hear about the development process, since it seems so different than other games at this scale. They're also just entertaining people to listen to.