Get your undead cowboy puppet show on in The Gunstringer.
We caught a very brief look at Twisted Pixel’s Kinect-powered rail shooter The Gunstringer at the beginning of the month, and suffice it to say that it looked like it had a ton of unique potential. Some kind soul recorded the game’s first 15 minutes, and with it we get a better understanding of exactly how The Gunstringer works.
The entire game is framed as a big puppet show, starring you as the puppeteer pulling the Gunstringer’s strings. The live-action intro brings to mind the opening of Brutal Legend with Jack Black in the record store, only with a Broadway-ish twist.
What’s really impressive is just how committed Twisted Pixels is to the puppet-show aesthetic. After defeating the first boss, the crowd applauds wildly, and the player’s performance is given a “review” from a theater critic. It’s possible that this could get old after a while, but it’s refreshing to see the developers so thoroughly on board with their game’s unique feel.
From what we see in this video, the Gunstringer’s movement is controlled with the left hand (as though you were holding a puppet’s strings) and his shooting is controlled with the right hand. In the reveal trailer we saw our undead cowboy puppet dual-wielding six-shooters, so no idea how things will change once that comes into the picture.
The Gunstringer also has a wonderfully deranged sense of humor – another thing that almost makes it feel like Tim Schafer’s Double Fine had a hand in developing this game. It’s never laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s enough to put a smirk on your face all the same.
I’m certainly intrigued. The Gunstringer is out for Kinect later this year.
