Buckshot Roulette is a thrilling yet out-of-the-ordinary take on Russian Roulette.
Buckshot Roulette is a first-person horror where you play Russian Roulette with a 12 gauge shotgun. Mike Klubnika developed the game, he has developed other games such as Unsorted Horror which is a small collection of horror games. The publisher for Buckshot Roulette is Critical Reflex, they have published games like TELEFORUM which is a found-footage-styled horror game. Buckshot Roulette was previously released on Itch.io by Mike Klubnika before making its way to Steam.
Buckshot Roulette takes place in an underground nightclub, You find yourself standing in a bathroom. It is only a short walk towards where The Dealer Sits. A normal match can’t take anywhere between 15-20 minutes but if you get lucky it could be quicker. The Dealer plays with the same odds you do. The Match doesn’t start until you sign a waiver.
Once the waiver is signed the game starts. You have to get through three rounds. In each round, you have a certain amount of health charges although it doesn’t necessarily mean game over if you lose them all in rounds one and two. The blank rounds are both a boon and a bane, if you shoot yourself with a blank round then The Dealer will lose their turn allowing you to go again.
The first round is played without any sort of Items, meaning you’re taking a gamble on the current slug being a blank rather than a live one when you point it at yourself. Most of the game is about taking a chance and hoping that the RNG loading of the bullets works in your favor.
Round two of the match allows you to use items. In normal mode, you have a total of five items that you can get: a pack of cigarettes, handcuffs, a hand saw, a magnifying glass, and a can of beer. Each item has a different use. The Magnifying glass allows you to see what round is currently in the chamber, The Cigarette Pack allows you to regain one charge of health allowing you to gain up to the maximum amount of charges allowed on that round for example if you started the round with four charges you can only gain up to four charges.
The Handsaw allows the current live slug to deal two damage rather than one, allowing you to take away a good chunk of health or end it all in one shot. The Handcuffs much like the blank round make the Dealer or yourself skip a turn depending on who’s wearing the cuffs. Drinking the beer allows you to unload the current round loaded into the gun.
In Round Three of normal mode, things take a much darker turn, usually, it wouldn’t be game over if you lose all your charges in Round One or Two if you lose all your health charges in Round Three it Is game over. This final round plays almost like a sudden death round, once your charges are down to your last two your defibrillator is cut. From then on it’s an even more dangerous gamble as it will only take one shot to lose the game.
Once you have won at least one match of the normal mode you will unlock double or nothing. Double or nothing has no sudden death rounds but any time you lose your health charges completely you will be met with a game over if you make it through all three rounds you can double your winnings multiple times or just cash out. To start Double or Nothing you have to take the pills that are found in the bathroom before you head to The Dealer.
Of course, this game mode has new Items and rules to play with. Unlike normal mode, you start round off with 4 items. You will get more items until you or The Dealer run out of health charges. Every round the items reset so you can’t keep any of the items on the board and will have to start fresh with a different loadout. The items much like the rounds loaded into the shotgun are randomised so you never know what you will get.
The newer items for Double or Nothing include Adrenaline which allows you to steal an item from The Dealer and immediately use it. A Phone that can tell you if one of the rounds loaded into the gun is live or blank, not just the first round like the magnifying glass. A pack of expired pills gives you a 40%chance to regain 2 health charges but it is a gamble as it can take away a health charge. You also get a device that can change the polarity of the current round in the chamber.
At the end of the match, you can view various stats from your match such as how many rounds you fired as well as how much beer you drank. Buckshot Roulette is a gambling game even if there is no real money involved and much like any other game that involves gambling of some kind it can become addictive.
The Sound Engineering is great, the subtle sound of the club mixed with the various sound effects doesn’t take away but adds to the immersive feel although it can get tedious if you are playing for hours on end. The graphics of Buckshot Roulette are reminiscent of an old 90’s style pixel mixed with a more modern 3d look giving it a highly unique style. The dark atmosphere and the various effects such as the flash of light when the gun goes off add to the game’s overall appearance.
Overall, Buckshot Roulette is an intriguing darkly themed gambling game. The stakes are high for thrill-seekers and those who are a little curious about Russian Roulette, it could just be what they seek when they take a gamble with The Dealer deep in the underground club.
