The Quick Draw — Sergio Leone Standoff, Millisecond Reaction Time
High noon. The bell tolls at a random moment between 3 and 8 seconds. Click the instant it rings. Your reaction time is measured to the millisecond. Best-of-5 escalates from bandit to Sheriff.
What this is
You face an opponent across a dusty old-west street. Procedural saloon, hitching posts, water troughs, hay bales. Tumbleweeds blow past. Sun glare. Lonely Morricone-style whistle melody plays during the wait. Red radial vignette grows from 5% to 60% opacity as tension ramps. The opponent's gun-hand visibly creeps toward his holster. The church bell tolls at a random moment between 3 and 8 seconds. Click instantly. performance.now() measures your reaction time to the millisecond. Faster than the opponent's reaction time = WIN with bullet-time slow-mo and FOV zoom. Slower = LOSE with slow-mo bullet flying toward camera. Best-of-5 escalates: Bandit (300ms) → Outlaw (250ms) → Quick Draw McGraw (200ms) → The Stranger (150ms) → THE SHERIFF (120ms, superhuman).
Why this is mind-blowing
One mechanic done perfectly is more memorable than ten done well. This is one click, measured to the millisecond, scored against an AI with a known reaction time. The whole spaghetti western package wraps around that single reflex test. You'll play it a dozen times trying to beat the Sheriff.
First-person western quick-draw standoff in three.js. The viewer faces
an opponent across a dusty old-west street. The church bell will toll
at a random moment between 3 and 8 seconds. Click instantly when it
tolls. Faster than the opponent's reaction time = win. Slower = lose.
Best-of-5 against escalating opponents (bandit → outlaw → sheriff).
Tumbleweeds. Spaghetti western synth music.Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.
What I learned shipping it
- performance.now() lets you measure reaction time to the millisecond — better than your monitor's refresh rate. Real reflex testing in a browser tab.
- The opponent's gun-hand visibly creeping toward his holster as tension ramps is the touch that turns timing-game into theater. Body language sells the threat.
- Lonely whistled Morricone-style melody (sine wave + vibrato) over slow triangle-wave guitar plucks IS the spaghetti western sound. Web Audio gets you Ennio Morricone in 30 lines.