NASTY JACK'S BACK IN TOWN.

HE'S AT THE SALOON.

IT'S TIME TO SHOOT HIM AND HIS NASTY GANG... WITH A GUN.

Words Must Die is a story-game where you're playing a hypertext game, but it's also an FPS. And you're shooting the words with your gun. (Your FPS gun.) And in the story you're also shooting a gun-- an imaginary, narrative gun.

Listen: there's guns.

Words Must Die is a submission to the Pippin Barr Game Jam. It's based on the following Pippin Barr tweet:

░ ░ GAME IDEA
░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░ YOU'RE A COWBOY
░ ░ ░
░ ░ AND YOU DONE WRONG
░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░ SO YOU NOBLY RELOAD
░ ░ ░
░ ░ AND TRY TO DO RIGHT
— P░pp░n B░rr (@pippinbarr) July 18, 2016

We'd also like to thank Christine Love for her wonderful hypertext game Even Cowgirls Bleed, which heavily inspired this game.

Paper Nerds is:

Brody Brooks | Programming and Level Design
Kris Calabio (Twitter) (itch.io) | Sound Composer
Mark Calabio | 2D Art
Travis Ford Decastro | Music and SFX
Brian Maynard | Programming and Level Design
Laura Michet | Writing and Game Design
Rosstin Murphy | Programming
Kent Sutherland | Writing and Game Design

"Words Must Die is what happens when a first person shooter and visual novel have a beautiful baby." - Kotaku

"It's certainly the best western-themed FPSIF I can think of." - RPS

"Congratulations!" - Mom

Update History

v1.2.1
- Minor writing edits
v1.2
- Updated final passes on music
- Fixed player able to leave level bounds when saloon is hidden
v1.1
- Added in-game pause menu (hit Escape)
- Added more variety of saloon folks
- Added Quit option to main menu
- Fixed mouse cursor being active when starting the game
- Fixed text in the beginning being difficult to read
- Fixed some broken button links
- Fixed ending music not looping properly

Download Trouble?

If you're finding the download links below are not working, here's a mirror:

Windows
Mac

Collections with Words Must Die