Tumblefire

Tumblefire is a Wild West action game where you ride into towns and decide what to do: rob a bank, burn a saloon, rustle a wagon or explore without taking a job. Play solo or with one friend. When you are ready to leave, take the stagecoach at the edge of town; you do not need a contract, and leaving does not cost you anything. Your actions are tallied and graded on the ride home.

Towns and characters

You play a saguaro cactus in a poncho, in towns populated by cactus people, including sheriffs, bandits and shopkeepers. The four handcrafted locations are Dust Creek, a flat frontier main street with a bank and an airship overhead; Copper Ridge, a mining town cut into a canyon wall that you can leave by mine cart; Stillwater Crossing, a river town divided by a bridge, with a respectable side and a less respectable one; and Brimstone Station, a moving train where you start at the caboose and fight forward. The towns are not procedurally generated: buildings, patrols and stashes are placed by hand.

There are nine types of building. You can open doors, break windows and shoot apart every part except the floor; a wall takes about four revolver rounds. You can also burn buildings and take what falls out.

Fire and factions

Fire spreads through a volumetric simulation rather than a scripted effect. Wind direction and materials affect its spread, while wet objects resist it. Flames produce smoke columns and embers, char surfaces and can bring buildings down. Fire can be a deliberate tool or a hazard that gets out of control: a match used to distract someone might set a block alight before you reach the vault.

Sheriffs enforce the law and escalate, while bandits are hostile to both you and the townsfolk. Citizens are unarmed and neutral, and tend to flee from fire. Sheriffs and bandits can fight each other without your help. Armed characters may collect loose loot, making a well-equipped one worth pursuing.

Rides and approaches

You can ride horses and shoot from the saddle, drive a two-horse wagon team, or board and pilot an airship. A stealth system uses line of sight, noise radius and alert levels. Avoid detection for a score bonus, or make noise and deal with the consequences.

The four core weapons are the Revolver, Dynamite, Matches and Incendiary. The wider arsenal also includes a Shotgun, Rifle, Bow and Fire Arrows, Throwing Knives, Lasso, Smoke Bombs, Molotov and a Hammer for quietly breaking through a wall. Choose the four weapons you carry at the hideout's weapon locker before riding out.

The Warren

The Warren is your hideout, where you can take a job from Mission Mary or head out without one. Use the weapon locker to choose your loadout and buy weapon upgrades, and spend your earnings with skill specialists. Four skill trees—Ghost, Arsonist, Gunslinger and Outlaw—contain 36 skills. Skills improve your character, while upgrades bought at the locker improve a particular weapon's damage, fire rate and reload tiers.

The hideout also has a notice board for achievements, a vault case for career records, and a practice range with scored targets, an ammo crate and straw bales to set alight. You manage co-op sessions at the telegraph post. The Warren is for planning, not a place you upgrade.

Co-op and scores

One friend can join from your Steam friends list, either at the hideout or during a ride. You can also make a session public so players can find it in Browse Sessions, play over LAN or join using a session code. Towns get busier with two players, who share the town and split the take.

Each ride is graded on money earned, chaos caused and time spent in town. Ghost (no detections), Chaos, Opportunist and Speed bonuses can stack, and free-roam rides are scored too. Each town has its own leaderboard.