Buckshot Roulette, the only game where you play Russian roulette, with a shotgun with a demonic pac man at a nightclub. 

Gameplay’s simple, you and the Dealer take turns with a shotgun randomly loaded with blanks and live rounds, live rounds damage you both but shooting yourself with a blank round gives you a free turn to possibly hurt the Dealer. For example if there’s one of each and you take the risk and it’s a blank, you get to shoot the Dealer who otherwise would be the one shooting you. If the gun runs out it gets re-loaded until the level is cleared, there are 3 levels total, each one giving you both more health, and beyond the first round things get more tactical, each time the gun is loaded you get items that let you do new actions. 

Handcuffs guarantee you two turns in the row by cuffing your opponent, a magnifying glass lets you peek at what the current shell is, saw lets you deal double damage if the next round is lived. Cigarettes let you heal and beer lets you cock the current shell and move on to the next one. 

Between keeping track of how many of each type of ammo you have and figuring out the best uses of your items the game creates a fun, tense puzzle where the solution is always gun. And frankly I think more puzzle games should try that. 

It is a short game, you can watch it start to finish and see almost everything there is to see in less than 20 minutes on YouTube, but it’s only $1.20 and I think it’s well worth it. The satisfaction of getting one over the Dealer with well used puzzles and the terrifying anticipation of waiting to see if your next shot will be a live or blank round is a great emotional high I think is best experienced 1st hand. 

The games’ short but what there is has been polished well with lots of little touches, the gun always shakes in your character's hands, clearly nervous. When you're shot the music gets louder and more intense, before stopping completely entirely when it comes near the end of the game to really build up the tension.  

Even the way the player and the Dealer handle some items are different, the dealer always cuffs you when he decides to use the handcuffs, but when you use them he takes them off you to cuff himself. Like he's determined to keep as much control over the game as possible. For a NPC who does not have a voice there's a lot of personality to him, he smiles when you start but instantly drops it when shot just once, at the start he loads the gun slowly, then gets quicker as he starts taking things more seriously. All the while dropping taunts or warnings to you, trying to unnerve you. There's so many more little touch ups I could not cover here but again I think this game was well polished and Mike Klubnika did a great job with it. 

Some quick tips for playing. 

1. Whenever the gun is loaded you always go first which can be played to your advantage. 

2. You can keep items between reloads so stack up on items for combo uses, but items do not carry between levels, so if the end is possibly near don't hold back. 

3. Pay attention to the Dealer's items, he can pull off some nasty combos himself with the right set up so try to mess with him if you can. 

I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know if you're somehow reading this, but I really like this game and I wanted to give it, and Mike some praise. I think he’s a creator to keep an eye on and I’m hoping for some kind of further development of Buckshot. I've seen many people expressing interest in a multiplayer mode and I really hope that can happen one day. 

Thanks for reading and have fun blowing your face off!

Link to game: https://mikeklubnika.itch.io/buckshot-roulette