History VideoGame / Westward

* ObviousBeta: In line with the NintendoHard entry, the experience system in Westward II felt untested, mixed with a touchy town happiness system that, one or both, could trash your town's productivity or make the game basically unbeatable. Westward III enhanced this with more options for experience points to keep the game at least playable without a guide, Westward IV further enhanced things with the career system allowing every citizen to become skilled in each type of job with bonus experience awarded AND removing the need for the hero to consume food, and Kingdoms kept many of these enhancements with a further expanded skill system and totally abandoning the town happiness meter.

* Westward: Build your settlements and fight against the Copperhead Gang, led by the evil Doc Vostrikov.
* Westward II: Heroes Of The Frontier: A direct sequel to Westward, take control of one of the citizens of Westward as you try to build a new town while dealing with Vostrikov and a reorganized Copperhead Gang.
* Westward III: Gold Rush: Play as either Polly Hatchet, Amos Cutter or Shawnee Longfeather, mining gold in California while working to fight a greedy politician who wishes to become the new governor of the state.
* [[http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/5322/westward-iv-all-aboard/ Westward IV: All Aboard]]: Expand the railway west with either Anne or Henry Turner as they rebuild their family's rundown rail line and fight against a vicious rail tycoon.
* Westward Kingdoms: A prequel set in medieval times, take control of either Prince Fenwick or Princess Catherine as they travel the land, rebuilding broken down kingdoms while they uncover a plot by an evil warlord and his army of barbarians to take control of the land.

Tropes include:

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Westward IV features an optional side quest through the entirety of the main story mode to find 36 hidden fossils. Finding all of them will unlock a velociraptor which will serve as a "gunslinger" in any subsequent playthrough. It is exceptionally strong as it's bites do heavy damage and it also has very high health.

*** A male character may say [[TheSimpsons "Mr. Plough, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plough"]] after finishing a farm or ranch.

* UnwinnableByMistake: The previously-mentioned town happiness system can cause this, as well as the experience system. Town happiness directly affects resource production and the mood of your citizens- at average things are normal, high happiness increases rates, and low happiness reduces rates and makes it more likely for citizens to randomly leave, aided by the fact that reduced food production will also cause them to move out. Many building types can raise this as well as having a variety of food types and hiring a sheriff and deputies. It can be lowered by having too many gunslingers in your town or a high population with nothing to counter-balance such negatives. If a town is too low it can be impossible to raise it to normal with your citizens fleeing, rendering a game unbeatable. Likewise, the experience system can be botched horribly if you randomly buy buildings, upgrades and luxuries while leaving yourself without enough points to buy whatever is needed to advance the plot when it is required. As mentioned before, Westward II was the worst regarding both due to the new system being poorly planned, while later games offered more options to earn experience, and kingdoms abandoned happiness totally.
** UnwinnableByInsanity: Deliberately wasting all your resources to the point you can't replenish them or spending all your experience on junk items on purpose

* InfantImmortality: Played straight by simply not having children appear. The issue of village population is fixed by abandoning any sort of childbirth system in favor of having new settlers simply movie in automatically whenever a new home is built, and the only characters that can actually die are outlaws, gunslingers or lawmen.

** Game 4's volcano might place the action in Washington state near Mt. Saint Helens, the only active volcano in the US. The North Dakota accent of the female sheriff and the general YouFailGeographyForever ambience (see below) militates against this.

* YouFailGeographyForever - Averted in that Games 3 and 4 feature snowy scenes in close proximity to scenes set in hot deserts, very like the mountainous "high desert" of the American West (e.g., in Utah and Colorado) with its dramatic variation by elevation, which may surprise some Easterners. (Admittedly, there is extreme time foreshortening between these scenes.) However, the active volcano in the 4th game more closely resembles a level from Diablo than it does any actual volcano in the US.
** And good luck figuring out just where in Europe (or in what specific century) Kingdoms is supposed to take place.

* BadassPrincess: Princess Catherine in Kingdoms. She sword fights.

** Whereas every game after 2 allows you to ship the tutorial if you've beaten the game once before, Westward forces the tutorial every new game regardless- although if a player keeps a save file right after the toturial, they can bypass this manually.

*** A rugged male character named Marion Morrison. Another character ridicules the name asking why he can't have a "normal" name like [[JohnWayne Wayne... or John.]]

* YouFailReligiousStudiesForever - Churches exist in games 1 and 3 but don't seem to serve any religious purpose.
** In game 1 they exist as a destination for any citizen to sober up drunks, where the sheriff's office is usable only by peace officers. And they give one more employment slot for a pastor.
** In games 2 and 3, building one raises town happiness a bit but it's only real purpose is allowing the building of cemeteries which is necessary only on one side quest in game 3.