Unluckily for you, while you’re on your way up, a mysterious man exits the elevator at the top floor, shoots Selena dead and flees the scene, leaving Conway with only one way of exiting the building, which involves walking directly past a security camera. The game opens with Richard Conway, freelance spy/hat-fancier/drunk, a**hole Inspector Gadget, being thrown out of a plate glass window, crashing into the side of a building, and then falling through the ceiling of the lobby, where he lies for a few seconds before the occupant of the building contacts him from the top floor to ask “Did you just get thrown out of a plate glass window?” to which Conway sheepishly replies “… No?” Luckily for you, this occupant is Selena Delgado, an employee of Rooke Firearms, who coincidentally was thinking about hiring you for a job and quickly buzzes you into the main building to meet her. With his only development cost being the $30 he spent on Game Maker 8 (which he recouped within minutes upon offering pre-orders), Gunpoint is, comparatively speaking, probably one of the most profitable indie games to have ever been made.

In just a month, he had a working prototype that he released for public feedback, and after polishing a few core mechanics, he asked for submissions from other artists to make the game more presentable, accepting help from John Roberts and Fabian Van Dommelon on artwork and Ryan Ike, Francisco Cerda and John Robert Matz on music. Tom’s initial idea for the game revolved around, in his own words, a “drunk, a**hole Inspector Gadget”, which also explains the initial title he chose ‘Private Dick’. And unlike every other person to have hastily thought “You know, I’ve played so many video games that I bet I could design a good one!” Tom actually could. Having heard that one of his favorite games, Spelunky, was designed by Derek Yu alone, Tom decided to try his hand at designing a video game of his own that would avoid the pitfalls he had spotted in other titles.

Tom Francis was working as a section editor at PC Gamer UK magazine, and being surrounded by video games, he was quite good at spotting where they went wrong most specifically in belittling the intelligence of the player by forcing them through a linear experience, rather than giving them the opportunity to solve a puzzle creatively, even in a way that he, the designer, may not have anticipated. Gunpoint has one of the most satisfying origin stories that you will ever hear.

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