gun cowboy
A downloadable game
You are alone, You weren’t always alone.
You are doing coin tricks in the rain.
GUN COWBOY is a journaling game for one player about a dead outlaw at the end of a long career. They may not know they are dead, but they are. Once, they had a gang, a posse, a crew — that's gone now, and only they (and their gun) remain. They will burn themselves up until they are nothing but bones and dust.
GUN COWBOY uses a tarot-inspired oracle deck and a coin-toss resolution mechanic to drag you slowly down into the dust, and leave you there. In order to play, you'll need this rulebook, a deck of cards, a journal, and at least one coin large enough to flip. I'm a fan of silver dollars, but quarters will do just fine.
GUN COWBOY was written by Che. It was inspired by too many things to count, but I have a great fondness for the book Blood Meridian, the Red Dead Redemption video game series, and the movie The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford.
GUN COWBOY is a tragedy, and will end in your unhappy fate. It is a game about the inevitable result of a life of violence, the return-on-investment of the violence which continues to define the united states. Content warnings for some talk of death and violence, genocide and settler colonialism, and one description of a decaying skeleton.
-Che, March 11, 2022
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Community Copies
If you'd like a copy of GUN COWBOY and don't want to pay the price, go ahead. If you've got a copy of GUN COWBOY and know somebody who doesn't want to pay the price, give it to them. If there is a way to replicate this game at zero cost, and to combat the lie of scarcity, do it.
We're all bandits here, or oughta be.
Comments
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no idea how long journal entries are supposed to be, but i'm having a very fun time filling my hatsune miku spiral notebook with existentially depressing, vaguely connected cowboy stories. pew pew!!
(the narration style of some of the card descriptions scratches a disco elysium-sized itch in my soul, somehow... it's very nice.)
FYI: I'm highlighting the Solo and Alone 3 games on my personal twitter feed. https://twitter.com/RabbitMatchGame/status/1620619097896787968
What didn't make the 280 char limit is how effective your use of recurring elements with differing perspectives and details (e.g. the Devil, your queens) was across suits. Nice.