The Gunstringer
Twisted Pixel's first title for the Xbox360 Kinect. The aptly named Gunstringer is a former outlaw who's returned from the grave to seek vengence upon his former posse. Armed with his trusty six-shooter and the fury of the devil himself, the Gunstringer will be charging all over The Wild West (or at least as close as a puppet show can get) to find his betrayers and serve them some deadly justice.
The game has received a Downloadable Content add-on called Wavy Tube Man Chronicles, a Live Action Full Motion Video Rail Shooter starring the main game's iconic first stage boss.
This work contains examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Mixes The Western with a rather cheeky puppet show.
- Anachronism Stew: Then again it is a puppet show, so historical accuracy is pretty much moot.
- Back From the Dead: The Gunstringer.
- Beard of Evil: The Beard Master uses it as a deadly weapon!
- Brain Bleach: How Gatorjack was conceived. Both the audience and the Gunstringer share this reaction.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Old Baron's a classic Western version of this.
- Death Glare: the Gunstringer does this a lot to his enemies.
- DVD Commentary: Done by Lets Players Pokecapn and his posse.
- Far East: Everything about the Beard Master's stage. Odd for a game that's in the Old West...
- Framing Device: The entire story is told as a puppet show.
- Gag Boobs: The Brothel Madam. It's not as great as it sounds...
- Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Even in a world of silly Western puppets with anachronistic levels, the Wavy Tube Man really comes out of nowhere. Notable in that he's the first boss.
- Guns Akimbo: A couple of segments have the Gunstringer whip out a second gun and shoot just about everything onscreen.
- I Was Quite the Looker: If you're to believe the Brothel Madam's poster. Could be a case of Very False Advertising.
- Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: In the Beard Master's stage.
- Kill It With Fire: One of the upgrades is a flamethrower. That's right...a flamethrower in a Western.
- Like a Badass Out of Hell: The Gunstringer, full stop.
- Line Of Sight Premise: The game came about when the two heads of Twisted Pixel were in a meeting with a Microsoft exec in a Tex-Mex restaurant to pitch an idea for a Kinect game. Unfortunately, they didn't have one (to be precise they did but it was found at the last minute to be impractical with the Kinect's technology) and eventually the representative left to use the bathroom wanting to hear it when she got back, giving them only a few minutes to come up with a new game idea. They had previously discussed a game based on marionettes and one of them noticed a painting of a skeleton cowboy. And the rest is history.
- Male Gaze: Gunstringer can not help but stare at the Brothel Madam's assets, it is the only noticeable time he smiles.
- Mayincatec: The Lady of the Dead has an Aztec name (Mictecacihuatl) and is the living embodiment of Dia de Los Muertos.
- Medium Awareness: The Gunstringer knows full well he's in a puppet show and takes a bow after every act.
- Muppet: The Sheriff that works for the Old Baron is an all out parody of one.
- Necromancer: The Lady of the Dead.
- Night of the Living Mooks: There are thousands of paper zombies that go after you in th Lady of the Dears level.
- Old Master: The Beard Master.
- Perpetual Frowner: Gunstringer
- Prehensile Hair: The Beard Master's beard.
- Samurai Cowboy: The Beard Master's minions.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: The shotgun upgrade is capable of clearing just about half the screen in one shot.
- Supernatural Martial Arts: The Beard Master.
- Rage Against the Author: For the finale, The Gunstringer decides to kill off the Twisted Pixel Developers in the audience.
- Rail Shooter
- Revolvers Are Just Better: It's a western. What do you expect?
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What the entire plot boils down to.
- The Western: Natch.