Imagine a Western where scouring the American frontier is as urgent as calculating the severity of a hat. This balance sustains West of Loathing's mixture of zealous role-playing and profuse outpouring of absurdity. It's proof that capable writing can not only texture eccentric maneuvers in design and presentation, but also prevail as a primary attraction. West of Loathing celebrates Western ambience and revels in disciplined goofiness.
Westerns are synonymous with gangs of outlaws, frontier towns, and railroads. West of Loathing has all of those things, but processes them through a black-and-white doodle filter. The ensuing melee, in between whiffs of meat and traces of necromancy, reveals a world of tightly attentive absurdism made visible through a lens of crudely animated doodles and stick figures. West of Loathing, through all of this, operates as classic turn-based role playing game engulfed in fearless silliness.
West of Loathing places a great amount of care in being funny and remaining funny. It does this without submitting to gratuitous profanity, meme references, or taking the painless route with unconscious racism, sexism, or any other regrettable -ism. In place of shortcuts is a genuine oddity: careful and candid writing. Videogames are hardly ever “written”—even when they flourish their narrative—and it’s difficult to think of many games where the writing isn’t compromised by a well-meaning designer or outsider agitation. West of Loathing thrives on its ability to be really funny all the time. It works with, rather than in spite of, its own presentation and objectives.
West of Loathing’s intentions were made clear the first time I arrived at a cemetery. In between headstones and epitaphs I found the grave of Beauregard Skelton (1820-1866) and I was presented with the option of digging up Beauregard Skelton and fighting his reanimated skeleton. Next time I found a graveyard it was called a Daveyard because everyone buried there was named Dave. The third time I found a graveyard I stumbled upon a goblin roasting a hot dog, which I had previously helped another guy invent, over an eternal flame. West of Loathing presents these instances as simple facets of its world. This is normal to everyone here.
The frontier populace would, generally, prefer to feel better. That’s where you come in. Choosing one of three classes, you can become Beanslinger and specialize in mystical magic, a Snake Oiler and focus on moxie-powered pistols, or a Cow Puncher and conduct offense with muscled physical attacks. I chose to be a Cow Puncher because I wanted something that made sense in a world consumed by bewildering chaos. Cow Puncher let me solve my actual and metaphorical problems by allowing me to acquire an escalating series of swords and clubbing-tools that I used to bludgeon goblins and skeletons and cows to death.
There’s more to combat, of course. Action points, which are refreshed after every fight, grant unique abilities. I could Beef Up and increase my muscle stat. I could deliver a Haymaker and render an opponent stunned for a round. I also had the option of firing my pistol or using a profundity of items, including dynamite (which kind of felt like cheating). West of Loathing’s battles are a mixture of strategy and efficiency. In a hat-tip to convenience, failure rarely penalizes the player. Either you pass out and are escorted back to your room back in Dirtwater (which passes time and erases buffs) or sometimes your horse just carries you to wherever it was you meant to go.
God. The horse. West of Loathing’s prologue is designed to pair the player one of four horses and for some reason I chose the thing with the eyeballs that always rotate in opposing directions. Where ever we went he’d just stand at the hitching post with his eyes bugging out like “OK man, cool, but I’m waiting here” and no one ever called attention to his preposterous demeanor. Not even the drunken horse walking around on two legs in Breadwood. Apparently the Crazy Horse is good at finding new map locations and stumbling into weird events. The other three horses have different perks, I suppose. I don’t know. I named my horse Daryll.
West of Loathing’s modest technical performance conceals a fairly contemplative backbone. Managing the three core stats, moxie, mysticism, and muscle, help guide the player’s class as well as their play style. Experience points can be used to raise those stats or bolster certain actions like lock picking or (for Cow Punchers like me) leatherworking. Dozens of perks, like Spittoon Hand (which granted a bunch of resistances) and Appalachian Skull Whisperin’ (yes), make battles easier or help direct the player toward more involved ways of progression through West of Loathing. Dozens of items, too, can be used to temporarily raise your stats to pass otherwise unavailable progress checks.
Fronteirsmanship, which isn’t a word but in the spirit of West of Loathing we’re going to favor raw expression over the trappings of language, is the driving force of West of Loathing. Simple objectives, initially spurred away by Dirtwater residents, draw your adventures up and down a fairly large map. Travelling around point-to-point with your horse sometimes leads to the discovery of other landmarks, like the Abandoned Pickle Factory or the Petting Cemetery. Other times, wandering around launches brief text adventures that rouse conflict and transition to either a hearty talk or a quick battle with a fiend. Before long the entire map is populated with attractions, even if each one doesn’t yet have a specific objective attached.
While West of Loathing’s objectives are loosely organized, there’s always plenty out there to do. Dirtwood’s jail needs to be filled, and it’s up to you to capture criminals dead or alive. Local bars are full of people in need of help. City outskirts are also populated, including the anthropomorphic cactus who wanted something to read and allowed me to slam an old newspaper into the spines hear his eyes. Passing through the mountains, crossing a canyon, and making your way to Frisco compose West of Loathing’s three main acts, but dozens of other quests can help raise stats and acquire loot on your way there.
I don’t know that it’s possible to oversell West of Loathing’s commitment to absurdity. Every saloon contains a spittoon. Approaching any one of them prompts the player to sift through it for loot. Accompanying this process are paragraphs of text that describe, in great detail, the putrid blend hell and misery you’re about to rifle through. It smells like someone ran over a skunk, waited a week, then set it on fire. It feels like your hand is dissolving. Your resolve is never left unchallenged, and the author of West of Loathing’s seems to grow more incredulous every time you dive back in. There’s a very matter-of-fact quality to West of Loathing’s style that prefers accuracy over embellishment and still the hundreds of words pleading against each spittoon dive are delightful exercises in an anti-filth crisis management.
West of Loathing’s more traditional quests better integrate its stick-figure opera. Collaring the Potemkin Gang had a great gag involving an outhouse and backwards music, but actually nabbing them was, itself, a puzzle in making sure they were all staying in the same place at the same time. The Ghostwood Stapler incident, in which I had to navigate a ceaseless network of bureaucratic processes, was irritating in its length until it went on so long it came around to being funny again. Combing environments for specific items is kept to a minimum and map-scouring work, like solving all of Breadwood’s problems, is closer to the norm. West of Loathing tries its best to shuffle the player through as much (or as little) content as desired.
It’s easy to overlook how amiable West of Loathing is about practically everything. From the language it uses to describe your pardner to its calm behavior when you’re confronting angry skeletons or flaming cow skulls, it’s so nice about its otherwise horrific subjects. West of Loathing maintains its affable tone for the entirety of its ten or so hours, and this is likely one of its most valuable assets. West of Loathing’s happy doodles and senseless smiles act as open invitations to its wackadoodle west. Jokes are silly and outrageous but they’re never mean.
I do wish West of Loathing had been better at organizing all of its information. Your inventory, as it expands, takes more and more time to load as it grows. There’s also no way to view a list of all of your current objectives or quests, instead relying on check-ins with your pardner to direct potential action. This is kind of in the spirit of Westerns, you’re just supposed to roll out there and have an adventure, but West of Loathing’s numerous objective and locations made it hard for me to keep track of everything I meant to do. Menus aren’t a serious threat to enjoying the game, but they definitely take some getting used-to.
There are other bits of ephemera that I don’t know what to do with. West of Loathing’s currency is called meat. There’s a perk called Stupid Walking that defaults your character to a bunch of different walk animations, including slithering and that thing dogs and cats do when they need to get poop off of their butt. Subplots involving necromancers, future vibration technology, and a weirdass circus compose fairly involving quest lines. Rampant silliness is absolutely everywhere you look and bleeds through everyone you talk to. West of Loathing, other than the stapler quest that is explicitly designed to waste your time, wastes none of your time.
Few games are platforms for writing. Even fewer use that focus for comedy. Portal and its sequel are often held up as the standard, but games like The Stanley Parable, Psychonauts, and Jazzpunk have a deft touch where it never seems like they’re trying too hard. West of Loathing does for absurdist comedy and Westerns what Undertale did for whimsical mirth and Earthbound. Other than pieces of Westerado: Double Barreled, there’s nothing else in the game space quite like it.
Imagine a Western where scouring the American frontier is as urgent as calculating the severity of a hat. This balance sustains West of Loathing’s mixture of zealous role-playing and profuse outpouring of absurdity. It’s proof that capable writing can not only texture eccentric maneuvers in design and presentation, but also prevail as a primary attraction. West of Loathing celebrates Western ambiance and revels in disciplined goofiness.
