The Real Texas

The Real Texas is an action-adventure game inspired by the gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past mixed with Ultima VI: The False Prophet. It tells the story of Sam, a Texas rancher, who inherited the farm from his uncle five years before. He worked hard for five years, but now he needs a vacation. He decides to travel to Rockingham Castle in England to spend a quiet holiday. Even though he can visit the castle, it turns out everyone is gone and through a blue portal in the ballroom he can travel to an alternate universe surrounding a city called Strange. Going back and forth between the two worlds, he needs to explore the environment, meet the inhabitants, fight strange creatures and solve many puzzles.

The game is shown through a bird's-eye third-person camera that turns top-down in certain situations. The world is in 3D and the game uses a cube-style look for all characters and surroundings. Sam has a wobbly walking style and can be moved around with the keys while most interaction is done with the mouse. The game offers a large world with many secrets. Even though much of it can be accessed right away, it presents many puzzles at once, and barriers and locked doors need a solution before the areas behind them can be explored. Progress is achieved through solving puzzles and interaction with the environment. There are many characters to meet and they often have jobs for Sam to solve. Almost everything can be examined and possible actions are shown as verbs. The interaction screen also includes a parser where custom verbs can be entered for additional results. These are not always optional. Items are gathered by searching the inhabitants' houses or completing quests. Many of them have long-winded paths with items to be used elsewhere and require a lot of deduction from the player.

Sam has access to an inventory with limited space where items can be stored and examined. Hit outfit can be defined through six slots. Sometimes these are only cosmetic enhancements, but items such as rings or necklaces can provide additional abilities, or a disguise needs to be worn to remain undetected. Many clues are also left behind as notes. Important tasks in the world include finding out why there are barriers all over town, discovering a strange underground farm, and sneaking into a large fort. Sam also needs to find a way to bring back the castle's personnel turned into ghosts as they provide key cards that open up additional rooms. There are shops where money earned by stealing or defeating monsters can be spent. Sam also needs to rest by sleeping and when dead, he comes back but in exchange for an amount of dollars. Fighting is done in real-time by equipping a pistol, crossbow, wand or rifle, each with a limited firing range. There is also TNT to blow up obstacles. There is no health bar, but the screen becomes dark and red when Sam is hurt too much and he starts to barf blood. Certain monsters can hold him and then a quick sequence needs to be completed to break free. In conversations asking about certain situations opens up new topics into dialogue trees. By exploring, a mini-map is drawn into the bottom right corner. After a while Sam discovers ways to fast travel around the map. It also features a day-and-night cycle that influences the behaviour of the inhabitants. The game is saved automatically.