History VideoGame / WestOfLoathing

* GeographicFlexibility: Dirtwater is close to Topeka (Kansas), Frisco, and the Alamo (Texas). On the other hand, this is explicitly not Earth (it's the same two-mooned world that Kingdom Of Loathing takes place on). Building on the joke, the Frisco of the game is neither San Francisco (California) nor the city of Frisco (Texas),[[note]]Frisco is a somewhat contested nickname for San Francisco, but Frisco, TX actually took its original name of Frisco City in reference to the St Louis-San Francisco Railway around which the original water stop formed.[[/note]] but rather a city on the west coast called Frisco (said to be named after one '''Sam''' Frisco).

* GeographicFlexibility: Dirtwater is close to Topeka (Kansas), Frisco (Texas), and the Alamo (also Texas). On the other hand, this is explicitly not Earth (it's the same two-mooned world that ''Kingdom of Loathing'' takes place on).

[[caption-width-right:350:''AnAdventurerIsYou!'' ...wait, [[VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing wrong game]].[==]]]

''West of Loathing'' is a single-player slapstick comedy adventure role-playing game set in the wild west of the ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' universe. It is a spinoff of the original, and while the original game was an {{MMORPG}}, ''West'' is a {{CRPG}}.

A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port was released on May 31, 2018, and the game's [[DownloadableContent story DLC]], ''Reckonin' at Gun Manor'', was released February 8, 2019. The sequel, ''VideoGame/ShadowsOverLoathing'', was released on [[ArcNumber November 11]], 2022.

!! This game provides examples of:

* AnachronismStew: Gramophones are rather commonplace in the game despite it being set in the [[TheGayNineties 1890s]], a time in which audio recording technology was still a relatively new thing. And that's not even going into the fact that the game shows many characteristics of a wild west setting despite those dating back to the 18'''60s''', not the 1890s. But then again, this game ''is'' set in the same fantasy world as ''Videogame/KingdomOfLoathing'' (you know, the one that uses meat as a currency and is not even an actual planet, it's an asteroid with two moons), so this actually kind of [[JustifiedTrope justified]].

* AndYourRewardIsEdible: Another common reward for completing quests or defeating enemies is a consumable, which boosts various stats for the rest of the day, but you're limited to a certain number of each category.
* AntiClimax: Many occur in the game - possibly to subvert the player's expectations. This ''is'' a parody video game after all.

** The final area, the [[spoiler: Runaway Train]], is a fairly easy area that is filled with high-level skill checks that don't really do anything except provide you with some funny text and neat buffs. The FinalBoss, Norton, is ''pathetically'' easy, especially if you're a Snake Oiler or Cow Puncher. His final phase is somewhat of a challenge, but otherwise he's pretty pathetic. Moreover, if you know what you're doing, all the fights with him are entirely skippable. (Moreover moreover, if you give him what he asks for the first time you meet him - several items will work - he never steals the train in the first place and the game ends right there)

* AntiHero: You can learn necromancy, trick a demon lord into giving you a Boon, lie, cheat, murder, and steal your way through the game, and still be a fundamentally good person. The Snake Oiler even has a skill called "Hornswagglin'" that lets them swindle NPC's. The equivalent skill for Cow Punchers is called "Intimidatin'" and is basically how much of a bully you can be and get away with it.

* TheAlcoholic: Doc Alice, who constantly [[DrowningMySorrows drinks to forget]] about the patients she failed to save, and the many who came back for revenge. She spends the entire game with a bottle in her hand and can [[HealItWithBooze heal herself by drinking]] from it.
** Susie Cochraine drinks her whiskey out of beer mugs; i.e., by the ''pint''. She's also DrowningMySorrows, and if you recover her family rifle and recruit her, she successfully kicks the habit.
* AndThisIsFor: If you bring Alice to the Necromancer's hideout, [[spoiler:she blows his head off with her shotgun "for Elliot"]].
* ApocalypseHow: Or more accurately, [[{{Pun}} Apocalypse Cow]]. Planetary scale, societal disruption -- when [[TheLegionsOfHell The Cows Came Home]], they wiped out all dairy ranches and tanneries, and continue to haunt the early sections of the world map as high level encounters.
** Another one is possible [[spoiler: in the DistantFinale. If you don't investigate, repair, and recalibrate the failing El Vibrato containment field, Roberto will eventually escape and bring about an EarthShatteringKaboom. It doesn't happen until after humanity develops space travel, though, so don't feel too bad if you can't figure out the puzzle.]]
* ArcNumber: 11.[[note]]([[RunningGag That's ridiculous.]] [[Videogame/KingdomOfLoathing It's not even funny.]])[[/note]]
** There are also repeated references to 23, 37, and 420.

* BrickJoke: At the start of the game, you can choose to free your pet crow, Russel. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, he returns to you to help convince a train passenger to stop Norton]].

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: It gives you a stack of "Anger", which actually ''increases'' your stats. The only downside is that if your Anger exceeds your Pain Tolerance, you pass out and the day ends, wiping out all of your buffs from the food/booze/potions you've consumed that day, and ending your shot at the "one day hard mode" achievement if you were going for that.

* EldritchAbomination: Roberto, presumably. [[spoiler:While he's never encountered officially, you do encounter his cult from time to time, which gives the implication that he's some kind of Lovecraftian horror. He also causes an ApocalypseHow 420 years from the time the game takes place if you don't complete the El Vibrato sidequest.]]
* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: Gary seems to be. He's certainly more eloquent in it than ''you'' are, anyway.

*** You fetch weapon for Suzie (straightforward) and booze for Alice (figuring out, what she needs, is another puzzle) to unlock them as "pardners".

* GeographicFlexibility: Dirtwater is close to Topeka (Kansas), Frisco (California), and the Alamo (Texas). On the other hand, this is explicitly not Earth (it's the same two-mooned world that Kingdom Of Loathing takes place on) and Frisco is not San Francisco, but a town actually named "Frisco".

* GuideDangIt: Like ''Kingdom Of Loathing'', some things are so obscure that finding them is almost impossible without a guide.
** See PermanentlyMissableContent below. Many locations are constructed in a way that makes it easy to screw up by attacking every enemy or picking every object, while hints for correct solution only appear several screens later. This problem wouldn't have been as glaring, if the game allowed to save.

* GrievousHarmWithABody: Snake Whip, which is exactly what it sounds like.

* TheLegionsOfHell: Both Cows and Clowns are from Hell, and they [[EnemyCivilWar hate each other.]]

* MedicineShow: Snake Oilers gain access to an abandoned one when gaining their mid-game crafting skill.

** On a more meta level (even moreso than what you'd expect from this trope), when the game first came out, the word "Christmas" was mentioned freely despite the game being set in the same universe as ''Videogame/KingdomOfLoathing''. A few weeks later and when the first update was released, the first thing it did was to change all mentions of "Christmas" to [=KoL=]'s [[YouMeanXMas "Crimbo"]].

** The ice room of Gun Manor is cooled by a [=MagiMechTech=] brand deep freeze unit. [=MagiMechTech=] made various {{Magitek}} robots in [=KoL=], such as the [=MechaMech=] enemy and [=MicroMechaMech=] familiar.
* {{Necromancer}}: A game-spanning sidequest is dedicated to seeking out the necromancer raising the dead in The West. Also, potentially [[spoiler:the Player Character, if they get too involved in Nex-Mex]].
* NeverMessWithGranny: If you choose to become a cow puncher, before you leave your family farm, your father will give you brass knuckles that used to belong to your grandmother. If you become a snake oiler instead, your grandmother's inheritance is a briefcase of live (venomous) snakes. There's also Doc Alice, one of the available pardners who's an old lady with a shotgun and later on a bonesaw capable of one-shotting any undead.

** A Nex-Mex Textbook is found in Military Cemetary plot 666.

* PostModernMagic: Guns can be enchanted just as easily as swords, sometimes just by dropping them down a privy.
* PowerUpFood: All in-game food provides some benefit, either buffing stats, providing elemental resistance or giving some subplot-specific effect. It wears off after a game day, but a game day can last as long as you like as long as you don't sleep or get so angry that you pass out for the rest of the day.

* PowerAtAPrice:

** Normally, you get 1 event for every "wandering" around a location or every journey between known locations. As you explore a region, the base encounter probability for journeys eventually falls from 95% to 35%.
** See EncounterBait above. There are multiple items, skills and perks that affect frequency and severity of encounters.

* RenovatingThePlayerHeadquarters: Dirtwater has several vacant lots available, which are filled in with certain shops when the coresponding sidequest is completed.

** Your character can't spell sarsaparilla, so every instance of the item in your inventory is spelt in a different way. (The narrator, on the other hand, can spell it just fine.)

* TheSixStats: Weirdly named. It shares KOL's ThreeStatSystem of Muscle (melee damage) Mysticality (spell damage) and Moxie (ranged damage), and adds Grit, Gumption, and Glamour. If you're used to KOL, the original stats don't work quite the same way as before, with many of their functions moved to the three new stats. (Muscle, for example, also gave a buff to Max HP in KOL, but Grit does that in WOL).

* StealthPun: Saint Pope was excommunicated for impersonating the Pope, but due to a bureaucratic mix-up, remained a saint. [[spoiler:They made a '''cleric'''al error.]]

* SuddenDownerEnding: [[spoiler:If you defied Grace at Stern Ranch by destroying the cow altar, then regardless of what else happens in the ending you get, the very last slide states that you end up spending the rest of your life plagued by horrific nightmares sent to you by the vengeful Grace.]] Of course, this game being what it is, it's played for ''very'' BlackComedy.
** [[spoiler:If you don't use the Fort Skeletons to wipe out the Clowns, then regardless of what else happens in the ending, one of the ending slides reveals that the Clowns and the surviving Hell Cows attacked each other in a massive final battle that devastates the West, kills countless innocents, and leaves the survivors traumatized]]. Again, its played for (very) BlackComedy.

** Norton's Ant-Eye Virus is ''extremely'' annoying.

* TeleportGun: The El Vibrato teleporter is a handheld device you can use in fights against El Vibrato constructs, to forcibly teleport them away.

-->''[[YouKnowWhatYouDid You know what you did.]]''

* TomeOfEldritchLore: How you learn Nex-Mex magic.

* VideoGameCaringPotential: You can fight the cultists in the Madness Maw Mine, or give them Antipsychotic Headbands, in which case, they go back to being regular people. If you save enough of them, you'll unlock a special scene in the ending.

** In the "Reckonin' at Gun Manor" DLC, you can choose to help the ghosts with their unfinished businesses or you can just fight them.

* WeakBossStrongUnderlings: For a large portion of the game, you hear about The Necromancer and see his handiwork in the many skeletons you fight. After finding a bunch of clues, you locate the tower. You fight your way to the top of the tower through hordes of skeletons. Then, you finally reach the Necromancer. [[spoiler: It turns out that all that dark magic did a number on him, and the Necromancer turned to dust if you just breathed on him hard enough.]]
* WeirdCurrency: Meat dropped from enemies is the main currency just like in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. Like [=KoL=], it's not dropped by things that obviously lack meat (i.e. skeletons, ghosts).

* YouMeanXmas: The game's first update corrected all mentions of Christmas in the game into ''Kingdom's'' "Crimbo".

A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port was released on May 31, 2018, and the game's [[DownloadableContent story DLC]], ''Reckonin' at Gun Manor'', was released February 8, 2019.

* {{Scam}}: The rigged carnival balloon game scam (usually done with half-full balloons and dulled darts IRL) is {{Subverted}}. The clown running the minigame in the "Barnaby Bob's Carnival" area tells you that the balloons are under-inflated and the pistol is under-charged. When your character asks if that means he gets no business, he responds that explaining how he rigged it makes people want to play it ''more,'' because if they win, they'll be the guy who beat the admittedly-rigged game.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The clowns paint their faces on [[spoiler: and hatch from]] eggs so that no two clowns have identical patterns. This may seem like it was made up to make the Clowns even creepier, but this is an [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clowns_Gallery-Museum actual practice]] among professional clowns -- [[spoiler:minus the hatching, obviously]].

* ArcWords: In ''Reckonin' at Gun Manor," the word "BOO."

* DeterminedWidow:
** Susie Cochrane, who follows you out West to go kill cows after her family was massacred by them. Every time she kills a cow, she carves another notch into her rifle. This adds to her determination, gradually making her stronger.
** Doc Alice, who comes with you to avenge her husband Elliot's skeletonization. She levels by helping to kill enough undead monsters and studying their remains.

** Poisoning is treated by administering Patent Emetic -- making the victim vomit out the bad stuff. Lampshaded by saying that this was ""common knowledge"" circa 1895.

A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port was released on May 31, 2018, and the game's first [[DownloadableContent story DLC]], ''Reckonin' at Gun Manor'', was released February 8, 2019.

** The Necromancer sidequest has you traveling all across the West and investigating undead activity to locate the Necromancer's tower. When you finally find the tower, you climb your way to the top, facing a series of increasingly difficult encounters with the Necromancer's undead minions, until [[spoiler:you see that the Necromancer himself has become so weak and decrepit from the use of dark arts that he's no longer capable of moving from his chair, and disintegrates with a single touch.]] Subverted if [[spoiler:you learn at least six of the seven Nex-Mex skills and activate all three of the runes while ascending the tower, in which case you can choose to take the Necromancer's place.]]