Review: Buckshot Roulette
Buckshot Roulette is gaming’s latest surprise hit, and for quite the good reason, with its twisted and unique gameplay, and tension-filled atmosphere. Menu
Sign in nowCloseReviewsBy Kyle LeClairPublished Apr 19, 2024
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- Buckshot Roulette offers a unique twist on Russian Roulette with strategic gameplay and a creepy atmosphere.
- The game challenges players to remember odds and use items to outsmart the dealer in an underground nightclub.
- While it could benefit from more items, the replayability and tense gameplay make Buckshot Roulette a pleasant surprise.
Buckshot Roulette sees you start out in a grimy bathroom with “AFRAID?” scrawled on the wall rather ominously. You exit and find yourself in an underground nightclub with electronica playing in the background, a man smoking by a railing, seemingly indifferent to what’s going on. You enter the room in front of you, and meet the Dealer, a being that seemingly just consists of a twisted smiley face with jagged teeth and hands. After signing a waiver, the game begins proper. A shotgun is produced, shells are shown – some blank, some the real deal – and the gun is randomly loaded. The goal? Shoot your opponent and deplete their charges before they can do the same with you. Take a hit and a defibrillator charge is used to bring you back.
It starts out simple. Each turn, you can choose to shoot the dealer, or yourself, and whenever one of you fires upon the other – be it live round or blank – the gun is passed to the other for their turn. In contrast, you can fire at yourself as many times as you want. Before all of that, at the beginning of each new full reload, you’re shown how many blanks and regular shells are involved, and you have to weigh out the odds with what each shot will produce. So at the start, it seems like a lot of luck is involved, but in between reloads, Buckshot Roulette introduces items to be used, which is where things get interesting.
Now you have tools like a magnifying glass that can reveal the current round. Handcuffs that hold the other player in place for two rounds. Beer that randomly reorders the shells before ejecting one for you to see. Now you have ways of manipulating the odds, ways to survive longer and deal more damage. More strategy is involved as you try to figure out when to properly use items, and what items the Dealer might use as well. And yet luck is still there, as the items given are random. But with enough skill, you can survive three rounds, and leave with the prize of seventy thousand dollars. But you’ll be back. Because that’s when you unlock Buckshot Roulette’s “Double or Nothing” mode, and this is where things get even more interesting.
Double Down
Now when you begin in the bathroom, there’s a bottle of pills on the counter, and taking them kicks off an even longer game where after every three rounds that you survive, you can choose to keep going in order to double your cash. While the regular game escalates everything gradually, here, things are more random. The amount of charges can be random, as are the number of shells involved and how many of each type. You do get more items, but how many is still random as well. More importantly, you get new items to play with. Adrenaline that steals items from opponents, burner phones that can tell you what a random shell later on will be, inverters that change the polarity of the current shell, and even prescription medicine that has a forty percent chance to heal you even more, and a sixty percent chance to hurt you further.
This is where things get more chaotic, even more strategy and a dash of luck is required to win, and things get glorious. There’s a massive amount of joy to be had in trying to amass a pile of items on your side and attempting to figure out a combination best suited to win as quickly as possible, lest the Dealer retaliate with their pile of items. What is there to do? Well, you can use a burner phone to learn that the fourth shell will be a live round, and knowing that there are two live shells this round, start chugging any beers in order to hopefully eject one of those shells, and as the info revealed by the phones never change, now you know exactly when to fire. Or if the dealer is down to one charge and there’s one live shell and one blank remaining, you can use the inverter. If the current shell was a blank, it’s live now, and you can take the Dealer out. If it was live, it’s blank now, but firing on the Dealer means they have a blank shot now as well, meaning you can then move to a reload with new items that can hopefully finish the job.
Did He Fire Six Shots, Or…
It’s all such a unique, fresh twist on such a simple game, and it succeeds spectacularly, delivering this innovative, strategy-infused take on it all. Beyond that, it’s just so tense and exciting, largely due to one simple fact, that being the player’s reliance on memory for success. Buckshot Roulette doesn’t keep track of what you’re shown, so you have to remember what shells are loaded, which ones are remaining, and even what info the burner phones give you. And that’s what makes it a thrilling challenge, as you try and focus on everything while remembering the current odds. Should your memory lapse even once or you start to doubt things, you can panic as you try to recall everything needed. And the game sells this tension, as even when you know that it’s just a computer game, you can actually find yourself closing your eyes as you turn the gun on yourself because you need an extra turn and to eject a blank shell, all while not certain if it’s a blank or not.
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It helps that Buckshot Roulette’s aesthetics help back up the tension. There’s a reason why a shotgun is used, after all, due to it being more visceral and impactful. It’s always creepy to successfully shoot the Dealer, and then see their grin disappear, giving way to a mess of mangled, sharp teeth, and just as creepy when you take a surprise hit, and find yourself on the receiving end of the defibrilator. But what adds to an unsettling atmosphere is the style, which is a mix of fifth-gen-esque 3D graphics, industrial color schemes with a grimy feel, and most interesting of all, an emphasis on colder, bulky, analog tech.
The CRT monitor in the bathroom that shows the leaderboards, with a ton of wires sticking out of it. The defibrillator that looks like something from a factory floor. Even when you sign the waiver at the beginning of each game, it’s this weird, bulky keypad that prints the name on the paper, like a device from an alternate history. Even the Dealer’s more aggressive animations when using items compared to your own are a nice, eerie touch. Back this all up with a pulse-pounding electronica soundtrack to fit the “underground” vibe even more, and you have one nicely twisted setting.
About the only real flaw with Buckshot Roulette is that it could benefit from even more items to play around with, or a few extra wrinkles here and there, given how short it can feel at times. That said, any lack of content is made up for in the area of replayability, as there’s always a thrill in trying to find out new strategies that can work best, and seeing just how far you can go in Double or Nothing, hoping to get a satisfying car ride home at the end, showing just how much money you racked up. It may have come with a lot of sweat as you worried over whether you were making the right shot or not, but it’s all worth it.
Closing Comments:
Buckshot Roulette is easily one of the year’s most pleasant surprises, even if everything about its presentation is the opposite of “pleasant,” ironically. It’s a unique gem that puts a further twist on an already twisted bit of gambling, with gameplay that requires a sharp memory, a strategic mind and the occasional prayer towards Lady Luck. Throw in a warped industrial style that gives everything an eerie look and feel, and you have a delightfully deranged game more than worth taking a gamble on.
Buckshot Roulette Version Reviewed: PC
4.5/5StrategyHorrorPlatform(s)PC , LinuxReleased December 28, 2023 Developer(s) Mike Klubnika Engine Godot Pros- Unique setup that perfectly twists Russian Roulette into a game of strategy
- Gameplay that expertly rewards a sharp memory and the ability tog figure out the odds as best as possible
- A good deal of challenge in the potentially endless “Double or Nothing” mode
- Grimy, industrial visuals that fit like a glove
Cons- Could use more items to experiment with, new items only available in “Double or Nothing”
Version Reviewed: PC
4.5/5 StrategyHorror Platform(s)PC , LinuxReleased December 28, 2023 Developer(s) Mike Klubnika Engine Godot Pros- Unique setup that perfectly twists Russian Roulette into a game of strategy
- Gameplay that expertly rewards a sharp memory and the ability tog figure out the odds as best as possible
- A good deal of challenge in the potentially endless “Double or Nothing” mode
- Grimy, industrial visuals that fit like a glove
Cons- Could use more items to experiment with, new items only available in “Double or Nothing”
Literally Mindblowing Gameplay. 15 to 20-minute intense playtime. Enter the arena, go three rounds against The Dealer, and walk away with the prize.
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