Vidjama Gmaes Work

Free on Steam.

Today’s spotlight on free games is for The New Sheriff, a title by newcomer to Steam Bitfoot Studio that literally just launched today (September 1). It describes itself as a “shooter where you won’t have to shoot everything, presented in black and white like classic westerns.”

You play as a sheriff in a small procedurally generated town with procedurally generated people. At the start of each level you have a handful of bullets, a gun, and a list of most wanted people. By getting close to others you can scope out their faces and see if they match your list. And if they do, kill them before they kill you. Pretty simple. If you stare at bandits too long they’ll realize you’re scoping them out and shoot at you.

Occasionally bandits show up to cause additional problems like robbing a bank or just trying to kill you outright.

For what it’s worth the default keyboard controls for this game are absolute balls. It’s a title you’re meant to play with WASD and the mouse, but the developer for some inexplicable reason bound reloading by default to the right control key. Sure, why not? Thankfully they had the foresight to let you actually rebind keys, which is more than some indie devs do.

The New Sheriff is tough as hell, to the point where it’s probably a good thing this game is free because I can see most people refunding it within a half hour. I actually found the game easier by not bothering comparing faces at all until the end. Instead it was easier to just stare everyone down and let the bandits reveal themselves. By the time you glance down at the profile pictures, they’re probably already shooting at you.

I never got past level 2 and I don’t plan on trying to go back for a while or at least until the developer tweaks the game. Level 1 is difficult and moderately frustrating but you can beat it. In level 2 I had four bandits one after another show up off the side of the screen without a single break in the middle and just died very quickly. And this happened repeatedly, not as bad but with multiple bandits appearing at the same time.

There’s a lot of neat ideas in The New Sheriff. Over time you forget the faces of the people on the wanted board, because your character apparently has early onset dementia and can’t remember a poster he looked at two minutes ago. That’s fine, I’m actually fine with that mechanic. You’re encouraged to not shoot wildly by having the feds come after you if you kill a civilian. I even like the little added detail of the guys coming out to collect bodies.

The game demands patience but doesn’t offer it to you in return, especially after the first level. There’s a major issue of the mouse not actually highlighting people when you mouse over them, but staying on someone far enough away that the mouse shouldn’t be doing that. And then there’s the factor of the doctor straight up ditching you and healing being unavailable for long stretches of time even if you have the cash.

The New Sheriff requires some tweaks, but there’s a solid game here. I hope to play more of it.