Overview
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 2/10 (depends on how much you grind coins).
- Offline: 12/20 (120/200)
- Online: 8/20 (80/200) Not truly online, just require an internet connection.
- Approximate amount of time to 200: 50+ hours (4-6 hours if you spend $20+).
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1 Story + Many Endless Runs.
- Number of missable achievements: None
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No Cheats
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: No
- Glitchy achievements: 1 ("My First Purchase" see description).
- Unobtainable achievements: None
- Extra equipment needed?: Windows 8 PC or Tablet.
Introduction:
The Gunstringer: Dead Man Running is a Temple Run clone with an old-Western theme. You control the character in third person, maneuvering him around, under, and over obstacles, all the while collecting coins and shooting targets. There is a Story Mode where you complete levels of a set length following a very forgettable back story, as well as an Endless Run Mode where you strive to get as far as you can in randomly-generated infinite stages. The game fits the freemium model well, but unfortunately, is not free. Many of the achievements are an absolute grind, requiring a significant amount of in-game currency to obtain. In-game currency can be earned in-game slowly or purchased for real money, but the prices are more-or-less outrageous. Currently the game is listed at $1.49 in the Windows 8 Store.
Step 1: Grind coins
The first thing you are going to want to do is grind coins so you can unlock Level 1 of the power-ups and some continues. See the "Grinding Method" at the beginning of the guide.
Step 2: Story Mode
Once you have enough coins to unlock all of the power-ups, you can begin playing Story Mode. If the power-ups are not unlocked first, you will not be able to earn the badge for power-ups for any of the levels for the "Master Badge Collector" achievement and you will have to replay every level again. Try to get all of the badges on a given level before moving on. There are only a total of 12 normal + 3 boss levels, which are all quite short.
Step 3: Endless Run Mode
All of the "in one session" Endless Run Mode achievements should be attempted in a single playthrough, as you will need to spend a significant amount of continues (which cost coins) to get these achievements. See "Treasure Hunter" for more information. You may also want to grind coins to level up your power-ups, which can help greatly with these achievements, but is very pricey to do. There are also a few quick and simple online challenge achievements associated with this mode as well.
Step 4: Grind, grind, grind more coins
After completing Steps 1-3, you will still need to grind many many more coins to be able to unlock all of the purchase-related achievements. In total you will probably need to earn over 2 million coins.
Conclusion:
The Gunstringer is a major grind to complete if you are not wishing to shell out $20+ in real money to purchase the in-game currency. When the game first launched, there was an exploit that allowed you to earn infinite in-game currency very quickly which has since been patched. Currently the best method of grinding will still only allow you to complete it in a minimum of 50 hours of boring, cooperative grinding so it is suggested you avoid this title. If you do not care about completion, a cool 100 can be earned with little trouble in less than 8 hours.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACH ($$$):
All of the grinding in this game can be cut out if you spend real money to purchase in-game currency. If doing this, you should always purchase diamonds, NOT coins. Diamonds are cheaper and have better conversion rates in the Store (mostly because it is very hard and a slow process to earn diamonds without spending money, unlike coins which you can collect easily). I am unsure of how much you actually would have to spend on diamonds, but it would be probably around $20, depending on skill. You would need to buy enough to get a sufficient amount of continues, as well as enough to max out all three power-ups.
GRINDING METHOD:
Currently the fastest method for grinding coins is to complete asynchronous Endless Run challenges from a friend. You get a minimum of 500 coins for each challenge you complete. See the Achievement Trading thread HERE if you are looking for someone to exchange challenges with. Depending on how laggy the servers are at any given time, you can complete around 1 or 2 challenges per minute, including load times, meaning you can earn 60,000 to 120,000 coins per hour, not including the inevitableamount of time you would need to spend sending your friend challenges in return. It may be best to do the boosting while both you and your partner are simultaneously online. One player is continuously sending the challenges, while the other is completing them, taking turns every so often. This is the most efficient way to earn coins. If just playing Story or Endless Run Modes naturally, you wont be able to earn anywhere near as many coins (probably only around 50 per minute, which is 3000 per hour).
[x360a would like to thank Arsenic 17 for this Roadmap]