WEST OF DEAD

A roguelike that glares down at you and asks “Do you feel lucky, punk?”

A massive no-no in games usually is having creatures that you just can’t see,” co-founder and coder at Upstream Arcade Adam Langridge tells us, “[…] [but our art style] looks its best when you have things emerging out of just darkness.”

Borrowing from the shadowy works of Mike ‘Hellboy’ Mignola and the high-contrast panels of Frank ‘Sin City’ Miller, this western-infused cover shooter quickly instils a justifiable fear of the dark. It’s impressive work from a two-person art department, composed of studio co-founder Imkan Hayati and Patrick Martin. Gwilym Rees rounds out the fourman-band as a second coder, and makes the studio a Lionhead reunion.

Langridge tells us how supportive publisher

Raw Fury has been throughout West Of Dead’s development, expanding the scope of what was originally intended to be “a little indie thing” and making one particular developer dream come true.

“[Our publisher] started suggesting, ‘If you could choose anyone [to voice the protagonist], who would you choose?’” Langridge tells us, elaborating, “We were a little bit insulated from the process […] So, we had a short list and at the very top was ‘Ron Perlman.’ But it was one of those things that was like ‘Well, put it in. It’s not gonna happen but put him in anyway.’ […] Every now and then I’d get an email and go ‘It sounds like Raw Fury is talking to Ron Perlman! No, that must be a mistake!’ And then

“WE HAD A SHORT LIST AND AT THE VERY TOP WAS ‘RON PERLMAN.’”