Introducing Buckshot Roulette: A New Take on Russian Roulette

Russian Roulette with Shotguns is the easiest way to distill the premise of Buckshot Roulette. That’s the entire game and the only thing I needed to hear to be interested in playing it. This new title, developed by Mike Klubnika (his name is on the title screen), was released on itch.io for a dollar in December. It’s now being released on Steam and published by Critical Reflex. We all know the rules of russian roulette, how do you play it with a 12-gauge?

Stepping into the Den: The High-Stakes World of Buckshot Roulette

The player finds themselves in a gritty bathroom. There’s some writing on the walls from some likely unfortunate person previously here, and then we steel ourselves before kicking the door down. We find ourselves in a nightclub of some sort. The railing is too high, and we can’t get a good look. But that’s not important because we’re not here to party; we’re here to enter the horrifying Den of ‘the dealer’ to play some Buckshot Roulette.

The Rules of the Game: Surviving Buckshot Roulette

The simplicity of Buckshot Roulette, coupled with its intense gameplay and strategic items, makes for an unexpectedly deep and engaging experience

The rules are simple. A shotgun is loaded with an amount of blank and live cartridges. You know how many, but the order is random. You can shoot yourself or the dealer. If someone gets shot, they consume a defibrillator charge. These are essentially lives. If someone shoots themselves and it’s a blank, they can skip the next person’s turn. Shoot the dealer enough times, or have him shoot himself enough times before you die, and you win! How badly does our protagonist need this cash?

To spice up the gameplay, however, a bunch of items can really turn this into a strategic tabletop game outside of just chamber counting. You can draw from a pool of random items between rounds during your turn. These include a hacksaw, which makes the shotgun deal more damage than turns, a magnifying glass to check the current shell, drinking a can of beer to eject the current shell, handcuffs to make your opponent skip a turn, and the ability to smoke a cigarette to get a defibrillator chargeback.

Why Buckshot Roulette is a Streamer’s Dream Game

While these won’t drastically increase your playtime or add variety to a playthrough, they add some excellent depth to the game by giving you stuff to think about during your turns, which adds to the tension. After all, the dealer gets items of his own, too, meaning you’ll have to play smart to minimize the effectiveness of his tools. The developer really nailed the atmosphere with the main background track and gritty art style. There’s as much movement and color as needed, but that movement is confined to the most essential parts, and it gets all the details right.

Mike Klubnika has created a masterpiece of tension and strategy with Buckshot Roulette, proving that sometimes less is more in game design.

There’s shaking when you aim the gun at yourself, and it really sells the mood. When you get shot, either by yourself or the dealer, it cuts to black at the perfect time. When the defibrillator shocks you awake, you get jolted. When the game opens, and you move to the Den, the door slamming and the rave nightclub music help set up the stress.

Looking Forward: The Bright Future of Mike Klubnika’s Creations

Buckshot Roulette isn’t much, but for what it is, it’s perfect. It’s so cheap and offers a delightful experience that I can’t help but recommend it to everyone. I also think that this is the ideal game for streamers. If you want a title that will allow you to really express your personality to a crowd, then a luck-based game with lots of tension is perfect. And then it’ll acknowledge some planning and skill, too. I can’t wait to see what else this developer will be able to concoct.