Gunfright

Gunfright is presented in an isometric format and set in the fictional town of Black Rock. The player takes on the role of Sheriff Quickdraw, whose main objective is to track down and kill a gang of outlaws who are hiding in the town. The game begins with a first-person perspective targeting minigame in which vertically scrolling bags of money can be shot at using crosshairs. Shooting the bags give the player initial sums of money which can be used to purchase ammunition.

Sheriff Quickdraw must locate the wanted outlaws one by one. Once an outlaw has been found and shot to initiate a duel, the game shifts to the first-person targeting minigame. This time, the player must shoot the rapidly moving outlaw as quickly as possible. The player can either wait for the outlaw to draw, or take the initiative and shoot first, which will make the bandit draw his weapon as well. If the player successfully shoots an outlaw, a bounty is paid (increasing with every round), and a new outlaw enters the town.

Gunfright was developed with the isometric projection game engine known as Filmation II, which was used previously in Ultimate's 1985 ZX Spectrum game Nightshade. The Filmation engine was created by the Stamper brothers to portray 3D imagery. Filmation II used an image masking technique that drew and filled holes in the background, allowing the game to create composite structures out of pixelated drawings without visual overlay, despite the limitations platforms such as the ZX Spectrum offered.

Gunfright was initially released for the ZX Spectrum in December 1985, and was the last game to be developed under the direct involvement of the Stamper brothers. Realising that the graphical limits of platforms such as the ZX Spectrum had been pushed, future projects such as Blackwyche and Dragon Skulle were handed over to designer brothers Dave and Bob Thomas, who were often uncredited for their work. Gunfright, along with Knight Lore, Alien 8 and Nightshade, were re-released for the MSX in 1986, with Gunfright and Sabre Wulf being ported to the Amstrad CPC later that year.

The game received mostly positive reviews upon release. Reviewers writing for Crash praised the game's graphics as highly detailed and "colourful", but stated that the game was visually similar to Ultimate's immediately previous game, Nightshade. Gwyn Hughes of Your Sinclair thought the graphics were the best aspect of the game, despite similarly comparing them to those of Nightshade. Hughes also praised the game's smooth animation and the techniques used to portray the western town.

A reviewer for CVG suggested that the game's style and gameplay was a mix of Nightshade and Nintendo's Duck Hunt. Reviewing the MSX version, a reviewer for Computer Gamer praised the game's plot, and was complimentary of the way the game was able to separate itself from Ultimate's previous game, which had used the same Filmation engine.

Gunfright is part of an Xbox One compilation of 30 Rare titles, Rare Replay, released in August 2015.