I’ve played many western games – Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Westerado: Double Barreled – mostly portraying myself as a steel-eyed sniper capable of mowing down both crooks and law enforcement officers with a flurry of bullets from my gleaming six-shooters.
But am I really? If I was really in the Old West, would I be the deadliest, bravest cowboy in history? Doubtful. I’d probably be the portly saloon keeper, who cringes and worries when a brawl breaks out around the poker table and is much more likely to say “I ain’t lookin’ fer no problem, Mister!” to say. then I must say, “Sign, pilgrim.”
Deadwater Saloon gives me the chance to bring that fat coward to life. The saloon management sim has a bit of a Sims feel to it: I look into my tavern from above, I buy and arrange furniture, shelves and decorations, and I choose attributes for my bald, chubby character, Toast Parker. (Thanks to the sim’s excellent random name generator for that name.) Those attributes have expanded as well, with names like “savoir faire”, “seduction” and “litigiousness” offering bonuses that will come into play during random events that crop on like when I need to befriend someone, have sex with them, or sue them.
The sim is slow to start: the town is initially just the saloon, and all I can do is hire a bartender and cook, find food and drink recipes, and wait for someone to actually come in and order. But little by little the city starts to grow and customers start to trickle in. A trapper opens a shop next door so I can buy different meats to unlock new recipes. A brawl breaks out that drives my clients away and I have to hire a bouncer. A client complains that I don’t have any prostitutes, but I can’t find one to rent, so I add a piano and hire someone to play it. Music is just as good as sex, right? Here’s the hope.
But aside from the fact that I regularly spend more on wages and supplies than on customers, there’s a bigger problem: stress. Toast Parker is more of a nervous wreck than even I would be in the Old West, and the only way to relieve his stress is to eat, drink, smoke, read, or have sex. Since I have no books or tobacco and have not found any sex workers to hire, I can only calm myself by shoveling food in my face and getting drunk. It doesn’t reduce my stress that much though, and it climbs back up quickly in a few days.
That’s when the opium room next door moves in. Looking for a way to increase my income, I promptly buy 200 hits of the drug to sell in my saloon, plus a knife to make my bouncer a little more formidable. Moments after I close the deal, the owner of the opium room hands me another 200 free doses of opium. Now I positively swim in opium. My parlor has more of it than I have food and alcohol. Wait, do I have an opium den now too?
On the plus side, the opium sells better than the drinks and meals I serve, but it’s still not enough to put me in the shadows financially. After adding a card table, I can’t even afford to hire a dealer to run it. In fact, I’m about to run out of money at all, so I’m taking out a loan from the only place in town that offers it, which also happens to be the opium den. I hire a card dealer, add more tables and chairs on the second floor of the parlor so I can bring in more customers, and raise the prices of everything on the menu… but I’m still losing money month after month.
It wasn’t my plan to become an outlaw, but I feel like it’s time to try and rob someone, and I choose the only person in town who seems to have money: the owner of the opium den. It seems to me that something is really going wrong with Ol’ Toast. I buy opium, I sell opium, I get free opium, I take loans from an opium dealer and now I’m going to rob him. Oh damn, I might as well smoke opium. It lowers my stress levels more than food and drink, so I’m starting to do it daily. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
I’m addicted to opium and committing crimes, so it’s time to buy some guns, right?
And the heist works! With only a 26% chance of success, I manage to steal $82 from the opium room, although I hoped it would be much more (ideally enough to cover the loan amount). The downside is now the opium dealer and his whole family hate me, and the whole town’s suspicion level has risen to +300, which I suppose a sheriff will set up shop here sooner rather than later. “My opium parlor may be in danger,” I think to myself as I smoke my third opium pipe of the day.
Well, I’m addicted to opium and committing crimes, and a gang of bandits just stopped by the saloon to threaten me, so it’s time to buy some guns, right? Luckily, a blacksmith has set up a shop, so I buy three Colt revolvers, keep one for myself, and pass the other two out to my bouncers. A bakery is also opening, allowing me to purchase grains and research new recipes to serve in the saloon, such as biscuits, pies, and cakes, giving me a brief opportunity to do some real saloon business. But my stress level continues to rise and I continue to smoke opium to lower it. I also keep missing random events: trying to make a grumpy customer laugh, trying to convince someone with a great meal, flirting with an out-of-town woman, even just nodding hello to an acquaintance.
To nod! I have failed nodding roll and my kink was so bad that the person laughed and lowered their opinion of me. I’m going to repeat that embarrassing moment in my head all night as I plunge into yet another opium haze.
However, it turns out I’m good at something. An event ensues when a customer suddenly pulls out a gun and tries to rob me. My savoir-faire only gives me a 10% chance to talk me out of it, and my seduction skill shows only a 7% chance to convince him to fuck me right there on the floor of the saloon. However, I do have a gun and two armed bouncers. I go for the violent option and shoot the robber in the face. Problem solved.
My stress level rises again a few days later and Toast Parker starts thinking about suicide. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it – I do opium four times in a row – before a prompt tells me I have a nemesis in town and that person is, and I quote, “shit-talk”. Well the person in town who hates me the most is the opium dealer because I robbed him although you would think some of that anger would have dissipated because I’m obviously his best customer and seller. Anyway, since he’s an asshole, and since it’s only a matter of time before a sheriff shows up in town, and since the only thing I’ve done right in the past week is blow a guy’s brains out, I decide to keep going and kill the opium queen. Maybe that makes me feel better.
I forgot to take into account that I’m so incompetent that I can’t even nod kindly, so of course I fail my kill despite a 41% change from a successful garotting. (Why didn’t you use your gun, Toast? It’s literally all you have in front of you.) The opium dealer’s opinion of me drops to -100, and only because it’s impossible to be any lower. On the plus side, I successfully die the next day by my own hand. Stress again. Toast just couldn’t take it anymore. Sometimes there is not enough opium to make everything better.
We will. That was something! I’m not sure how I went from a cowardly but enterprising bartender to a drug addict and attempted murderer so quickly. I guess that’s just the Old West for you. If you’d like to try your hand at becoming a saloon manager or dope fan, you’ll find Deadwater Saloon right here on Steam (opens in new tab).
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