“Buckshot Roulette” is a horror-themed point-and-click game. It was created by Mike Klubnika, and was originally released on itch.io on December 28, 2023. Soon after the original release it became popular for its at-first simple yet eventually complex gameplay, along with its seemingly infinite replayability. It was also popularized by streamers and video creators, who all realized that it was the perfect game to make content of because of the aforementioned perfect gameplay loop. Due to its popularity, it was significantly updated and re-released on Steam with the help of game publisher Critical Reflex.
The gameplay of “Buckshot Roulette” is simple: Russian Roulette with a 12-gauge shotgun that uses live and blank rounds. To make the game more fair, both the player and dealer have multiple lives per round. These lives are known as charges, as the revive animation consists of defibrillators reviving the player character. There are three rounds in the “story” mode, each consisting of their own respective twist.
The first round is simple; the player and the dealer each have two charges. To win this round, the player must have luck on their side. Each load is made of randomly sorted rounds with a random amount of lives and blanks.
Once the shotgun is picked up, the player has two options: point the shotgun at themself or point the shotgun at the dealer. If the player chooses the former option and the round is a blank, they get to choose who to point the shotgun at again; this mechanism is the same for the dealer.
Once the player shoots the dealer twice, the second round begins. Both the player and the dealer get four lives this round, but that is not all. In this round, items are introduced. The player and dealer get two of six types of random items before each load, each item doing something different to help whoever uses it. Here is a list of the items and their effects in order of how useful I find them:
Magnifying Glass: Peek in the chamber to see the current round.
Handcuffs: Opponent’s next turn is skipped no matter what. If a blank is shot at one’s self, that turn skip takes priority.
Cigarette Pack: Heal 1 charge. Do not smoke in real life, as it causes opposite effects.
Saw: Saw the barrel of the gun to deal two damage instead of one.
Beer: Skip the current round in the chamber without skipping a turn or having to shoot self with a blank.
God’s Contract: This item does not do anything except add to the game’s lore. When pulled, the background music stops for a few seconds until it is automatically put back in the item box.
This round is arguably the easiest round because of the items, especially if the player is lucky enough to get the more useful items early on.
The final round gives the player and the dealer four items before each load and 6 charges. The twist of this round is when four charges are depleted from the remaining health of the player or the dealer; when this happens, an automated knife cuts the wire of the machine that revives the player and the dealer, causing whoever’s charges were depleted enough to not matter. They now have one life remaining with no chance of reviving. The stakes are now higher, as one round is the difference between life and death. Winning in this round by killing the dealer will award the player with an amount of money and an achievement called “70K.”
On the other hand, losing will not only cause the run to end, but also cause the player character to die and ascend to heaven; well, what is left of it. Dying in the third round also gives the “Bronze Gates” achievement.
After beating the main story mode, the player can choose to activate Double or Nothing mode, which essentially acts as an endless mode. This new mode changes the gameplay massively, offering random charges per load, rounds in each load and amount of items pulled from the box each round. There are four new items available to players in Double or Nothing. Once again, I will be putting them in a list of most to least useful:
Accelerator: Steal the opponent’s item and use it immediately. May not steal an accelerator item.
Burner Phone: Tells the player the value of a random round. Similar to a magnifying glass, but will not show the current round.
Inverter: Changes the “polarity” of the current round. Blanks change to lives and lives change to blanks.
Expired Medicine: 40% chance to regain two charges, 60% chance to lose a charge.
If the player wins the first trio of rounds in Double or Nothing, they are rewarded a certain amount of money based on their performance in the rounds. They are then met with the choice to play another trio of rounds to possibly double the amount of money they win or to stop the game and take home the money they are rewarded. If they choose to continue, each trio of rounds won will double the money they currently have, but holds the same risk of losing it all.
“Buckshot Roulette” is the best example of how good simple horror games can be. The developers have continued to create fun and exciting updates, and do not seem like they will be stopping anytime soon. The next big update is going to focus on giving the game an online multiplayer option. My rating of the game is nine snapped necks out of ten expired medicine pills swallowed, and its prize for a high rating is a free voucher to end my one million dollar Double or Nothing run.
