The wild west is no place for the weak and faint hearted, with bandits and hoodlums behind every rock. But if there’s one man who can survive and thrive here though, it’s Lone Mclonegan. Right?
Lone McLonegan is the number 1 outlaw in the Wild West and no one can dethrone him, until that is, Bragg Badass turns up and usurps him. We’re laboured with the task to regain our crown and once more sit in peace whilst being the meanest cowboy around. In our way to reclaiming our crown though stands Indians, gangster and terrifying locals. McLonegan looks the part; chewing tobacco, sporting a dusty poncho and a rugged ginger beard. He doesn’t however, have the demeaner of the tough guy he claims to have been. He’s actually quite a nice guy. He doesn’t go around with a 6 shooter and threaten the community, quite the opposite. He’s useless with a weapon and is often put in his place with little to no come back. Quite how he became the West’s baddest cowboy is a mystery, but it sets us up with a challenge regardless. We’re treated to a fantastic intro as credits role over a bleak and dusty Wild West, accompanied by a pitch perfect soundtrack. Our hero falls at the first hurdle when bandits attack his coach but luckily we’re just a short walk from the small town we wanted to visit. How do we then, become the meanest once more? Well, rob a bank of course.
This first section of the game is well structured, and genuinely a hoot. It’s also the best part of the game as once we manage to steal the treasure, it loses it’s way a little. In these early sections we’re able to investigate just a few places like the stagecoach, the bar, the undertakers, the shop and the bank, plus a little of the outskirts of the town. Confined to these few areas, it’s easier to understand the plethora of inventory puzzles the game asks of us. And these early puzzles all totally make sense. It’s after we manage to open up our world, that it all become a little overwhelming, with so much going on all at once, with so many locations now being accessible. This early part of the game also has a clear objective: Get into the bank. Afterwards though, we seem to be aimlessly meandering between several new locations, trying to figure out what it is we actually need to do.
What we DO need to do is defeat Bragg Badass, but there’s no suggestion of how to do this on our never ending quest, which took me almost 12 hours. At one point my inventory swelled to over 40 items, and it’s designed a little clunkily. They’re all stashed away at the top where we scroll across, so if we want to use one item with another we have to scroll across to find it, then scroll back to the other. Once we’ve used an item it also stays in our inventory so we’re never sure if we need it again or not. Another unfortunate design choice is that the map to fast track is also kept in our inventory. To use this map we have to first find it in our inventory, then use the look icon to look at it. It’s a pain. (Update! In a recent patch this was changed to make the map much more accessible)
The icons we can use are look at, talk to, walk to or use. We can also kick stuff, which is cool. It’s a little clunky here as to choose between them we have to right click, and I often kept clicking past the icon I wanted.
So back to the puzzles. Again the first part I keep referring to, about a quarter of the game, is engaging with clever uses for items. The puzzles throughout are all inventory based and it’s not a stretch to use a coat-hanger on a zipline, its wacky and zany and to the point…fun. It’s after this though that I had to make several stretches of how to solve a puzzle. In one point we have to make an old man think that he has a cow, and so decorate a bunch of stuff make it look like a cow, all to get a pale of milk, to use on something else, that helps us get an item to use on something else and repeat several times over. A lot of the time, it doesn’t make sense why I’m doing stuff. I did have to reach for a walkthrough several times as it’s not clearly signposted. The ‘Why’ of what we are doing is very much as messy as the ‘What’ we are doing. It feels like the entire first act had been polished, well worked out and workshopped so it all flowed and gave the player an exciting intro, only the other 75% of the game lawlessly heads out into the hot sun without a plan.
There are some things that save the game though, namely the art and music. It has it’s own unique style, all right angles with bold texture choices. Characters we meet all have strange black eyes which I feel you’ll either love or loathe. I like the strong, striking style here. McLonegans walking animation is a little stiff but considering the environment he inhibits it comes across as purposeful. It’s not voiced unfortunately, and I do feel it would have been fun to hear a proper southern drawl from McLonegan, but alas, we make do with bold text. The dialogue is fine, with occasional stiffness due to a translation. There’s no dialogue that falls flat as such, but sometimes it feels awkward. One big win is the save feature. I save so much and we’re given several slots and an auto save too. There’s also a kind of side quest to find 50 sheriff stars dotted around the world. I managed to get about 40 so I’m still none the wiser what happens if all are collected.
The strongest part of the whole game though is for sure the music. It’s a stunning set of original material that brings the west to life. Jaunty ditties played on banjo sit side by side bleak airy pieces.
I think the main issue with the game is the scope. If the game was half as long, with a clearer direction after the bank scene, and with more purpose to the puzzles, it could have been a great western. I found myself trying everything on everything to progress towards the end, and seeing as there are so many locations and inventory items, it sometimes became arduous.
Fundamentally though, I did enjoy the game and would urge you to try it yourself. Lone McLonegan is a goofy, likeable lead, and the first time developers clearly have a lot of love for the genre.
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Thanks to Sonomia Games for the review copy and thanks to you for reading. Get Lone McLonegan HERE
Michael, your point & click adventurer.