Greetings, High Rollers.
A surprising number of you were wondering about the stuff that almost made it into BUCKSHOT ROULETTE and was scrapped for one reason or another. Some of you even went as far as to datamine and dig through the game files to find out.
Well, today we asked Mike Klubnika to share some of his unused ideas for BUCKSHOT ROULETTE, so you can take a peek behind the development curtain and see what could have been. Maybe some of you would even go as far as to mod some of these in. Just kidding, haha. Unless..?
Let’s get started with a fairly known one: BUCKSHOT ROULETTE was called ‘Shotgun Roulette’ up until just days before release. What is lesser known is the fact that this was an homage to swiftor’s Call of Duty video series of the same name which Mike used to watch and love growing up.
BUCKSHOT ROULETTE was also originally planned to be a part of a bigger horror game, where the player would go to various locations in a small bleak town and complete objectives. One of these objectives was to beat an underground arcade owner in a game of shotgun roulette. The player would then use the tickets earned to purchase the grand prize, which was a piece of hardware for a device. Will that bigger horror game ever come to be? Guess, we’ll have to wait and see…
The original room BUCKSHOT ROULETTE took place was wayyy darker in the prototype
Moving on to the game itself. The nightclub was supposed to feature a view of a large crowd dancing below, but this idea was scrapped to save time and besides — isn’t a hollow metal husk of a club with only you, The Dealer, and the Smoking Guy a more suitable place for what’s about to happen?
Speaking of the Smoking Guy, for the initial itch.io release it was planned that he would follow the player into the room, before sitting on the chair and observing the game. Every time the player would die, the smoker dude could be seen sitting down again after reviving the player. However, once the final showdown arrived, the smoker dude would leave. This was also scrapped to save time.
In earlier prototypes The Dealer also had a monologue where he explains the rules of the game. He also mentioned the prize money, and that if the player loses, their corpse will be sold for profit. This monologue was removed so that there was less friction in getting into the game, since the rules of the game could easily be explained through short item descriptions and player interactions. Show, don’t tell, you know.
The Player always getting to go first also wasn’t always the case. The first turn of the game was originally supposed to be decided by The Dealer spinning the shotgun, spin-the-bottle style The starting turn would go to whoever the barrel is pointing at. (Comment below if this is something you want to happen for Multiplayer mode, wink-wink.)
We don’t have the animation for it, so we’ll leave it to your imagination
Speaking of game mechanics, there was one planned where the player could stack hand saws. Meaning they could saw off the barrel once, and then saw off the rest of the shotgun with a different hand saw, leaving only the receiver. This was scrapped mainly due to balance, but also to save time.
And the hand saw itself used to have a much different look and animation. One key part of the first vision for the game was the player struggling to saw off the barrel with a large rusty hacksaw. The hacksaw was replaced with a foldable hand saw later in development so that all items could fit on the same grid. We’ll leave the possible animation for The Dealer to your imagination.
Original items line-up from the older prototype with the old hacksaw model
The idea for heaven in the game was originally much more peaceful and less visceral. The player would have to interact with a person in the booth next to golden gates surrounded by clouds. The person would then ask the player whether or not he wants to try again, or go through the gates. This entire sequence felt very out of place when it came time to actually develop the scene, so it was changed to something that had more shock value and was a better fit to the rest of the game’s subtle lore.
Subtle lore in question
The device that cuts the cables in the final showdown was planned to be a guillotine. The design was later changed though, since a guillotine seemed too simple and predictable.
The ending of the game was originally planned to be an extended cutscene where the player would book it out of the club with the briefcase, enter their car, then look up to the rearview mirror and reveal only a blown-off head with a bit of spine sticking out - before it cut to black.
This was also scrapped mainly to save time.
And let’s top it off with a couple of ideas that were considered for post-itch.io launch but didn’t make it into Buckshot. One of the features that was planned was an unlockable small synthesizer that could be found in the restroom’s trash can. The synthesizer would have something like a 16-step sequencer that the player could program, and the melody would play after a round was won. This ended up not being developed as post-release needed features that were (and still are) more high priority. Please let us know if that’s something you want to see, though.
For the Steam release, initially an actual ‘Double or Nothing unlocked’ cutscene was planned, that would show an engineer working on the disassembled table, with the new items being in a pile ready to be stocked inside the table.
That’s all we have for today. We’re planning to have a Q&A session with Mike sometime in the future, so stay tuned for that, and now… back to the multiplayer grind!
Wishing you the best of luck, High Rollers,
Mike Klubnika, CR Channel & V̶̺̋Ǫ̶͒L̴͉̂T̶̺̈À̸̤ ̴̫̉Ś̴̱ţ̵͗ạ̷̄ñ̶͉d̴̋ͅa̶̩͝r̵̯͛d̴͙̓ ̶̖̎E̵͈͆l̵͍̐e̵̺͠c̴̟̄t̶̜̒r̸̪͠o̶͎͘n̶̰̄ị̵͑ç̷̄s̶̩͝
