~Homebrew~ Gunman Clive (Game Boy) - RetroAchievements/guides GitHub Wiki

~Homebrew~ Gunman Clive (Game Boy)

Boxart

1) Quick Info

Info Answer
Developer/Publisher Bertil Hörberg
Set Difficulty 2
Set Developer ventuz
Number of achievements 6
Total Score 15 (regardless of either normal or RetroPoints)
Minimum number of playthroughs needed 3 (you may end up doing more)
Hardest achievements of the set Oh Duck Off and The Fastest Hand in the West

Changelog:

1.0: Initial release.

2) Some explanation and lore

Game Badge

Gunman Clive is a short run 'n gun homebrew game for the Game Boy made by the creator of the series Bertil Hörberg as a demo of the game of the same name released for iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mac, Android and 3DS. It features smooth scrolling, detailed sprites and lots of pew-pews! This set was developed by ventuz and the game can be downloaded directly from RetroArch or here.

Title Screen In-game Screenshot

3) Achievements

Gunman in the Wild West (1)
Complete the game.
Not a Scratch (2)
Complete the game without getting harmed.
Pacifist from the West (1)
Pass screen 1 without harming anyone.
Pacifist goes into The Saloon (3)
Complete screen 3 without harming anyone.
Oh Duck Off (3)
Pass screen 1 without being harmed and without harming anyone.
The Fastest Hand in the West (5)
Complete the game under 50 seconds.

These are all the achievements of the game. Contrary to what others would do, I would recommend doing The Fastest Hand in the West first, so you can get it off early for "harder" achievements. You will obviously get the first, main achievement by doing any of these challenges, as long as you reach the end.

3.1) Speedrun

Screen 1

Quickly move out of your starting position, then shoot the first enemy you see, but don't go too high, as you will get hurt!

Enemy 1

After that, shoot a bullet to the next enemy, which is one step above you (literally).

Enemy 2

Then you'll find another enemy and the first out of 3 ducks in the game. Quickly shoot both while falling from the platform of the second enemy (don't forget to crouch because bullets will come!)

Duck and enemy

Then, you'll see an enemy which can shoot diagonally! Quickly jump on the boxes to avoid his bullets! There's no need to kill him in any run, and he may not instantly get to the other side sometimes.

Enemy 3 Where's the enemy?

Shortly after, you'll see the second duck in the game. Shoot him just like you did with the second enemy and proceed to the fourth one. He'll be shooting when you get there and will crouch, just like the enemy with the first duck and the enemies you will encounter in the second screen, but we'll get to them soon. Jump on the box in front of him when he's crouching.

Lonely duck Enemy 4

Ignore the gun upgrade. You don't need it in this run, don't waste your time. You should have around 22-24 seconds total by now, but don't panic that much. Go straight to the next screen where you will find 3 enemies, 2 that crouch and one that shoots diagonally.

Screen 2

Enemy group

Shoot the first enemy of the group as usual. It's ok if you get hurt, as you'll see later.

Group enemy 1

Then, quickly go up and shoot the second enemy.

Group enemy 2

Finally, go right, and defeat the final enemy of this screen.

Group enemy 3 and cake

You may be asking, what does that big cake over there do? Well, it fully restores your health and only appears in this screen. This will be useful for the last part, which, guess what, happens in the next screen! Talking about cakes, there's also a smaller piece of cake that restores 1 HP and can appear on any enemy, as long as you're below full health (4 HP to be exact). It is completely random as to when it will appear apart from that. By this point you should have taken around 30-33 seconds total. Quite short, huh?

Piece of cake

Screen 3

Now, on the third and final screen of this game, we get wolves, 2 to be exact. They take two hits instead of one, unlike the rest of the enemies. The first one is easy to get, just shoot them while running.

Wolf 1

Then jump over the gap and shoot the last enemy you'll have to care about. After that here's what may just be the hardest part of the run. Try to survive the second wolf without dying and then kill them so they don't bother you anymore.

Enemy 5 Wolf 2 Wolf 2 fail

Then jump over the last duck in the game, go straight to the door and you win! (Ignore the true last enemy, he won't get to shoot you before you get there) And it took you only around 46-48 seconds! Amazing!

Another lonely duck The End

3.2) No Damage Run

Most of the same strategies described before apply here, except for the fact that you don't have to worry about a timer (that only really appears on hardcore mode anyways), making the gun upgrade viable (it shoots 3 bullets in 3 directions, 1 each) and obviously you have to be more careful with certain situations.

3.3) Pacifist(ish) Run

Now here you must NOT use your gun at all (except on screen 2, where it's obligatory to kill the enemies there) and on one of the pacifist cheevos you must NOT take damage as well as avoiding all enemies. This is, of course, only possible on screen 1.

Screen 1 (No Damage)

Instead of killing the first enemy, jump over him, but not from the box, but rather directly from the ground. Same goes for the second enemy.

Pacifist enemy 1 Pacifist enemy 2

Now get between the two shots of the enemy with the duck and crouch, then jump above the enemy.

Pacifist duck and enemy

No change in strategy is needed for the third enemy. When you reach the first lonely duck, do a somewhat precise jump on him when he's moving AT you.

Pacifist lonely duck

No need to change your strategy for either the enemy after this duck nor screen 2.

Screen 3 (must take damage)

Jump on the first wolf instead of killing him. Just as easy as usual.

Pacifist wolf

Then, reach the platform where the enemy near the second wolf resides. Either keep moving and hope the wolf doesn't throw you into the bottomless pits or wait until the wolf goes to the left side, but be careful not to die (either from the fox or from the last enemy)!

Pacifist I-frames 1 Pacifist I-frames 2

Pacifist wolf death

Pacifist I-frames alt

4) Conclusion and some extras

Short but sweet set, despite being under the Free Points category. If you want some challenge but don't want extremely difficult games to master definitely check out this game, and if possible, buy the actual game on Steam!

Here are some tips to make your life easier:

  • I HEAVILY recommend the use of turbo buttons for this game. It helps more than you think.
  • You can only shoot 3 bullets at a time (or 2 groups of 3 if using the gun upgrade).
  • The controls are fairly straightforward: D-Pad to move, A to jump and B to shoot (unfortunately you cannot shoot diagonally like enemies do).
  • Pausing or dying in the game will NOT reset the timer. Reset the game instead, you don't lose anything for that.

Here's some behind the scenes! :3

  • I used MobyGames for a small part of the information seen here. Also, the iOS and Android versions are no longer available.
  • Unlike with Just Blob, I took all these screenshots at native resolution as I didn't have to focus on as much stuff as that game. Sorry if the pics from that guide look too stretched.
  • I had to replay the game both on softcore AND on hardcore for taking screenshots and calculating the time of the speedrun, respectively. A similar approach was utilized in the previously mentioned game, but only softcore was used.

I know it's been a while since I did a more serious guide, but I hope you enjoyed it and see you at RetroAchievements! :3

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