12 is Better Than 6 is a 2015 game developed by Ink Stains Games, and published by HypeTrain Digital. It was initially released for PC in 2015, and was later ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2019. It plays as a top-down shooter, similar to Hotline Miami, with a monochromatic art style. However, 12 is Better Than 6 offers a more realistic playstyle than other top-down shooters, in that you must manually cock your guns before they are able to fire. It also has a somewhat greater emphasis on stealth than Hotline Miami, and it is possible to kill many enemies without alerting others.
The game takes place in 1873, following a Mexican gunslinger who awakens enslaved in a mine, lacking any memory of who he was before. His mentor, a fellow slave named Juan, calls him Number Three, as the Mexican is the third person to arrive under these same circumstances. After Juan is fed to the overseer's dogs, the Mexican (taking Juan's name as his own) stages a one-man rebellion, and escapes into the Wild West to seek answers to his past and get revenge on... well, pretty much everyone in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.
A downloadable content pack was released in 2017. Called "The Apostles", it follows the stories of three characters encountered in the main game: Bill Watt, the leader of a Mexican gang; Slippery Pitt, a conman that The Mexican allies with early on in the game; and an Indian warrior, who sets off to his own journey to kill invading settlers.
12 is Better Than 6 contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Juan constantly mentions his desire to drink tequila.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: The Dallas County Sheriff offers to clear Juan of his crimes and grant him amnesty if he helps stop his former gang. Otherwise, he is in police custody on numerous accounts of murder, and there is a noose just outside the jail...
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Juan is a constant victim of this, as almost every faction or person he works with ends up betraying him. It's implied to have happened in the final level as well, if Pitt wasn't already dead by the time the landslide goes off.
- Everyone Has Standards: The Mexican seems to have qualms about killing people indiscriminately. Getting him angry tends to change his mind.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: By the end of the game, Juan has nearly the entirety of New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico hunting him down for his crimes.
- Evil Wears Black: Jesús's old gang wear outfits that are all black.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Even looking at Juan wrong tends to get people killed by him.
- The Hero Dies: Jesús is killed at the end of the game when the landslide meant to kill all his enemies goes off too early for him to escape, burying him as well.
- Identity Amnesia: This is what kicks off the plot, as Juan awakens as a slave with no memory of his past.
- It's Personal: It's mentioned that a major general's son was killed during one of Juan's shootouts, prompting him to send out his own patrols solely to find and kill Juan.
- Mêlée à Trois: In the final levels, Juan lures all the factions he's made enemies out of into an abandoned mining town, where they all attempt to kill each other to get to Juan first.
- The Unfought: Grey Ox and General Johnson are mentioned as major threats, but are never encountered.
- Villain Protagonist: Juan. He's incredibly self-serving, abrasive to nearly everyone he encounters, is almost certainly racist against white people, and was once the leader of a gang that burned down a town and killed an entire regiment of rangers.
- A Winner Is You: The game ends abruptly when the explosives triggering the landslide suddenly go off earlier than planned, killing everyone in the town, including Jesús. The player is greeted with a single image with some text, and then the credits roll.
