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The Wild OutbackNewsThe Wild Outback Christmas 2024 Launch
Steam news

The Wild Outback Christmas 2024 Launch

The Wild Outback · published 25 Dec 2024, 13:39 UTC

All newsPlayers around this dateRead on Steam

LONG STORY SHORT

This game started as a high school project in the Spring of 2018, with a team of three people. Later down the line, it would be worked on solo. In late 2024, a lot of polishing was done for the project to create the best possible experience.

This final product has no intention of earning profit. The purpose of creating this game was to have fun with it, and to attempt at recreating the feeling of how video games used to be back in the day; an homage to a simpler time.

BEGINNING OF DEVELOPMENT

The game is set in the Wild West, but this game could’ve been set anywhere. As high school devs there’s a limit to what could be used when it comes to 3D assets, but luckily there were a few free Wild West assets in the asset store. The original idea was to create a tower defense game in a futuristic setting, but there were no futuristic assets we could use at the time, so we stuck with the Wild West theme, and that’s when the genre was changed to arcade top-down shooter.

At the end of the Spring 2018 semester, everyone got to play with each other’s projects. The Wild Outback was an easy A, and it turned out to be one of the best projects the teacher had ever seen in the whole class. This motivated further development later on.

POST PROJECT ERA

Development on this game post 2020 was a trip to hell and back, so many things were changed, added and removed. Lots of experimentation was done in order to create simple and fun gameplay. This game is not very long, but the random, fast-paced, difficult feel of this game gives it the potential for endless replayability. This project serves as an example of the creator’s ambitions and self-improvement.

Lots of testing was performed to eliminate as many bugs and glitches as possible. The game was also optimized out of necessity thanks to its chaotic nature, lagging and stuttering should never happen normally.

CONTROLS

This game can be played with keyboard + mouse or xbox controller. If you want smoother movement, play with an xbox controller. If you want improved cursor aim, use keyboard + mouse. During gameplay, you can switch between using keyboard + mouse and using a controller freely.

CHEATS

This game has cheat codes that you can type in during gameplay. Most of these cheats will give you a negative score, causing you to never be able to update your high score. Restarting a level, or switching levels gets rid of the cheats and you can update your high score again. The list of cheat codes will be displayed in a separate post. If you’re going to cheat, do it responsibly as these cheats may cause game breaking side effects, and can cause the game to crash.

CONCLUSION

In the end, this game was made completely just for fun. Just having this game put up on Steam is a dream come true for the creator. This is pretty much the final build of the game, and there are no plans for updates. Of course, if there are bugs and glitches that hinder the experience, they might be accounted for in small patches. Thank you very much for your time. Enjoy the game!

More from The Wild Outback

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Game update13 Sep 2026The Wild Outback Update v1.0.8Hello y'all! This is The Wild Outback version 1.0.8. This is a small update that optimizes the game even further and makes it load even faster! Now the game has a more emphasized retro 3D style! · Medium graphics setting removed. · A lot of textures and sounds have been compressed and quality levels reduced. · The game loads levels much faster all across the board. · Total file size of the game…Game update11 Aug 2026The Wild Outback v1.0.7.2 Update- Updated Reset Progress window to display bigger and easier to read text. - Updated credits in the title screen to display bigger and easier to read text. - Reimplemented Intro 2 scene. After proceeding the very first screen upon launching the game, the intro cutscene will play, and is skippable. - There is a secret menu in the game that displays a list of cheat codes. Keep in mind, typing che…Game update9 Aug 2026The Wild Outback v1.0.7.1 is now live!This is a minor update aimed to GREATLY improve the overall game stability and performance. Seriously, this is the smoothest the game has ever run. Enjoy the experience! Optimizations: - Optimized and simplified game graphics for increased performance and visual consistency. - All projectiles and collectibles no longer cast/receive shadows for visual clarity and increased performance. - Optimiz…