The New Adventures Of Billy The Kid

The No Girls Club (aka the catamites) has released another quirky adventure game for Game Gale 2010.

Billy the Kid has lost his soul to the Devil in a poker game. The Devil, being a reasonable fellow, has offered to sell Billy back his soul for the modest sum of fifteen dollars, and gives him until sundown to pay up. Billy must find someone to loan him the money, but unfortunately his misdeeds have put him on everyone’s bad side. In desperation, Billy tries to earn the money by doing odd jobs in a small town that is infested with creatures from Greek Mythology for some reason.

Level Design 1/5:
The game makes use of catmitts’ patented “scribble buildings on pieces of paper and shoebox dioramas” graphics style, and it is suitably amusing and quirky.

The first and most obvious flaw with the interface is it seems to be must too sensitive to mouse clicks during dialogue. Many times I would click to advance the dialogue only for it to rocket through two or three dialogue boxes in one go. I was obliged to reload several times because I missed half of a conversation this way.

That said, for an adventure game this game is pretty straight forward. You have three goals, each of which requires an item. Once you find your first item it is pretty clear what must be done with it, and completing this goal hands the next item to you. You merely repeat this sequence of events until all the mythological creatures are vanquished. There is no sense of experimentation and the quirky dialogue and descriptions for random things that make adventure games fun for me are almost completely absent. There’s nothing much to do but complete your objectives.

Characters and Story 3/5:
Billy’s dialogue with the various womenfolk of the town make up the bulk of the game and for the must part it is amusing. Billy has hilariously overblown speech mannerisms as he tries desperately to convince everyone that he’s just down on his luck and needs someone to help him out. Him being one of the most notorious outlaws in history, people are reluctant to believe him.


The most amusing character, however, is the Devil. No matter where you go, the Devil is always one step behind, watching, waiting. He is always just over your shoulder, never saying much, but making sure you know that there is no escape. It is clear he has been stringing Billy along in this manner for quite some time and the futility of the ordeal just makes it all the more amusing. I feel Old Scratch is portrayed perfectly here.

Music and Sound 3/5
The only musical track in the game is a country style old-Western ballad-sort-of-song. I am not sure exactly how to describe it but it fits the setting well. No other sound effects were used.

Overall 2/5
Not catmitts’ best effort, but fans of his games will probably still enjoy it. However, even people who like adventure games aren’t likely to find much of interest here.