It’s a great name, isn’t it? I can’t think of many video-game heroes with the name Clive, although there should definitely be more. In fact, the only famous Clives I can think of are Clive Anderson and Clive James. But where are all the young Clives? ARE there any young Clives?

And now I’m thinking about a video game starring Clive James. It would see him questing about the Outback meeting B-list celebrities and gently mocking them as he delivers satirical monologues. It would be called Clive James on Video Games in honour of his long-running ITV television show Clive James on Television, and it would feature appearances by Dame Edna Everage, Keith Floyd and Margarita Pracatan. It would be beautiful.

Gunman Clive is not that game. But it is beautiful nonetheless.

It’s basically Mega Man but in the Old West, although that description doesn’t really do it justice. It starts off with the usual cowboys shooting from behind wooden crates, but quickly escalates to the point where you’re fending off bomb-dropping pelicans and giant robots. It’s charmingly bonkers.

The game is the work of one man, Bertil Hörberg, who worked on the excellent Bionic Commando Rearmed – and we even get a cheeky nod to that game with one of the bosses. It’s pretty short – you could probably finish the whole thing in an hour – but it only costs a couple of quid, and there’s a really special character to unlock at the end.

These 2D platformer-y things usually aren’t my cup of tea, but Gunman Clive just nails the controls and level design so well that it became a joy to play. Dying causes you to start again at the beginning of the level, but the levels are so short that it doesn’t cause frustration, and the difficulty curve is spot on. The art style, too, is wonderful, all sepia tones and sketchbook lines that look great in motion.

Yet despite creating a little gem of a game, Hörberg seems to be fairly humble about his achievement. In the gameplay trailer, he describes the game as “a generic oldschool sidescroller” with “weird artsy-looking 3D graphics” and “lots of brown”.

For the record, Bertil, I love brown. More please.