The Westerner Interview
Sia' Garrett' Manzari, 2004-04-21

We have a series of three interviews with dtp marketing manager Christopher Kellner about their series of adventures. Part one kicks off with details to The Westerner, a Cowboy 3D Adventure game by spanish developers Revistronic and sequel to Three Skulls of the Toltecs.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: The story is all new and has no connection to its predecessor, but the main character is the same.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: The player takes the role of Fenimore Fillmore, who was the main character in 3 Skulls also. At the beginning of the game he saves a farmer from some bad guys, who wanted to force him to sell his land to the scoundrel Starek. After that, he is hired by the local farmers to protect them against Starek. What sounds like a classical Western story is the background for about 30 hours of puzzling fun. And during the course of the game it becomes clear, that this Western setting is not taking itself to serious. The story is linear, as in almost any adventure, but the tasks and puzzles can be solved in different orders.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: Among others the German voice actors of Bruce Willis and Salma Hayek.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: Contrary to other 3D Adventures, The Westerner can played with the mouse. If you want to, you can remove the keyboard. Other than that, the controls follow the classical point'n'click scheme.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: The game mainly consists of classical, complex puzzles, which can always be solved by some logical thinking. The developers did pay much attention to logic. There will be no mechanical puzzles as in Myst.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: No. The Westerner has an ever increasing difficulty curve, which will keep the player busy for about 30 hours. Puzzles are very logical, so there won't be any frustrating moments for the players.

dtp - Christopher Kellner: There will be some mini games, for example, you need to participate in a shooting contest. Or you need to fight bandits while holding lit dynamite in your other hand. But you don't need to be afraid of these sequences even if you don't like action games at all, you can easily master them and they are about 2% of the game only. You also cannot die!