Minecraft:Snake Oil Stanley

Snake Oil Stanley is a game by Minecraft:Mojang created for the Minecraft:Humble Bundle Games Against Ebola game jam.

Gameplay

The game takes place in Haxxas (pun on Texas). The player takes the role of Snake Oil Stanley, a salesman of fraudulent medicine. The goal is to earn as much money as possible before getting executed.

The player starts out in the town of Owstin with $100.

Each day starts with Stanley reading today's newspaper, which lets the player see two headlines. One of them is either random or provides some information about Stanley's current reputation. The other is a weather forecast, this is random and has no impact on gameplay. The player chooses to either stay, or leave town.

If the player chooses to stay, Stanley goes to the fraud pharmacist, where potions can be bought. There are 4 options for varied prices: $1, $10, $85 and $1000.

After the player decides to finish, Stanley starts selling the medicine. 5 customers visit, with each deciding to either get none or one of the potions. If they are suspicious of Stanley, they will mention it before their purchase. The potions are sold for double the original price, for example by selling the $85 potion, the player gets $170. After that, the next day begins.

If the player chooses to leave town, they choose one of the towns in Haxxas to travel to: Owstin (pun on Austin, Wacko (pun on Waco), Dollaz (pun on Dallas, Bluntsville (pun on Brownsville), Shmorman (pun on Sherman, Murshell (pun on Marshall) or Housetown (pun on Houston). It takes a varying number of days to travel depending on how distant the town is.

Customers get progressively more suspicious of Stanley the longer he stays in town, and after a while, they will execute him, which ends the game. Each day Stanley needs to buy food and donkey fuel, which costs money. Running out of money causes Stanley to die of starvation, which also ends the game. The player needs to carefully balance scamming customers and travelling.

Controls

The game is controlled entirely using the mouse.

Soundtrack

The game uses "Just Say Goodbye Again" by George J. Gaskin looped infinitely as it's soundtrack.

Gallery

• Owstin welcome sign
  Owstin welcome sign
• Newspaper, Stanley has a good reputation
  Newspaper, Stanley has a good reputation
• Visiting the pharmacist
  Visiting the pharmacist
• Pharmacist describes a potion
  Pharmacist describes a potion
• Customer looking to buy a potion
  Customer looking to buy a potion
• Customer bought a potion
  Customer bought a potion
• Newspaper, rumors spread
  Newspaper, rumors spread
• Customer grows suspicious
  Customer grows suspicious
• Newspaper, Stanley has a bad reputation
  Newspaper, Stanley has a bad reputation
• Customer is angry
  Customer is angry
• Newspaper, Stanley has a very bad reputation
  Newspaper, Stanley has a very bad reputation
• Customer wants to execute Stanley
  Customer wants to execute Stanley
• Stanley was executed
  Stanley was executed
• Travelling
  Travelling
• Stanley has starved
  Stanley has starved

Trivia

• Internally, the game's mechanics are quite complicated. For example, each customer is assigned wealth based on the average town's wealth, which determines which potions they buy.
• In the game's code, there is an unused Ingredients class, containing lists of liquids, solids and preparations, suggesting that a feature allowing players to create their own potions was planned.