Unrefined Awesome

What?

As an exercise in thinking creatively - as well as a nice way to produce some potentially useful ideas - I intend to try to come up with a different theme and/or setting that could be used for a video game every day for the next 30 days.  Each one will come with a general description, a couple of game-types it might be appropriate for, and one or two very brief game ideas which somehow makes use of the theme or setting in question.

Should you wish to use any of the themes, ideas, etc. posted feel free to do so - you’re certainly welcome to credit me for it if you do, but it’s by no means required, and I expect many of the game ideas won’t be particularly original in any case.  Now that the explanation is out of the way, on with the first theme…

Theme: Old West

Explanation:

Like the “Western” genre of movies and TV shows.  Think cowboys, horses, saloons, six-shooters, etc.  This theme could work well either as a serious setting, or as more of a parody in the tradition of spaghetti western movies.  A few examples in popular culture such as the TV series Firefly or the 90’s comedy Wild Wild West have also done well by applying this theme to a more modernised or even futuristic setting.

Potentially Appropriate Genres:

Adventure games,  shooters, themed-arcade, interactive fiction.

Brief Game Ideas:

An adventure game where the player is a deputy-sheriff.  Adventures include identifying and tracking down bandits, surviving shootouts, and interactions with colourful local personalities and the town’s saloon.

A 2d arcade game where the player has to herd cattle, dealing with various difficulties including cattle-rustlers, predators, sick cattle and environmental hazards.