Postal is a 1997 shoot 'em up video game developed by Running with Scissors and published by Ripcord Games. The player controls an anonymous gun-toting man (informally dubbed the "Postal Dude") as he commits mass murder in the town of Paradise, Arizona under questionable circumstances. Each level sees players killing a given percentage of police officers, military personnel, and other armed "hostiles" before being allowed to progress, optionally slaughtering unarmed civilians caught in the crossfire.

Running with Scissors (RWS), having previously developed licensed child-friendly games as Riedel Software Productions (RSP), sought to make Postal as outrageous as possible. Inspired by Robotron: 2084 (1982) and the act of "going postal", the game made use of isometric and top-down visual perspectives to distinguish it from the growing first-person shooter market.

Upon its release for Mac OS and Windows in September 1997, Postal received a mixed reception from critics for its short length, unconventional controls, and repetitive gameplay. The game sparked controversy for its violence and gore, and was subsequently banned from several retailers and countries. The United States Postal Service filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against RWS before the game's release, and the case was eventually dismissed in 2003. An add-on to the game titled Special Delivery released in 1998. Postal would gain a cult following and become a franchise, with the direct sequel Postal 2 releasing in 2003. Following its original release, the game received ports to Linux, Mac OS X, Android, and Dreamcast. The source code of Postal was released under the GNU GPL-2.0-only license in 2016, and the game later became freeware in 2019.

A remake of the game, Postal Redux, was released for Windows in May 2016, followed by Linux in 2018, Nintendo Switch in 2020, and PlayStation 4 in 2021.

Gameplay

thumb|left|The player character shooting at hostiles with the [[shotgun. The top shows the amount of hostiles and total population members remaining in the level, as well as the percentage of hostiles that must be killed.]]

Postal is a shooter with isometric projection. Movement is always relative to the orientation of the player character (named "The Postal Dude"). The player, therefore, must always be aware of the direction the character is facing, which can be difficult to some players on the isometric maps.

There are eight weapon slots, each with a fixed amount of maximum ammo. The default weapon is a weak machine gun with unlimited ammo. Although it serves no practical purpose, the player can conceal their weapons by pressing the tilde key.

Plot

In the fictional Arizona town of Paradise, an unidentified man (commonly referred to as the "Postal Dude" or "Postal Guy"

| GameRev = B−

| GSpot = 6.6/10

| NGen = 4/5

| rev2 = Games Domain

| rev2Score = mixed

NPD Techworld, a firm that tracked sales in the United States, reported 49,036 units sold of Postal by December 2002.

Postal received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a Metacritic score of 56/100.

Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "Overall, Postal is a title that breaks absolutely no new ground, but its tongue-in-cheek shooting action comes together to form a well-above-average shooter that adds to the genre."

In a retrospective, GamingOnLinux reviewer Hamish Paul Wilson gave the game 7/10, commenting that "there is no denying that Postal has some faults even when compared to some of the other games that were released around the same time as it, and time has definitely not been very kind to the title itself. But the concepts that the game explores, the ideas being expressed, and much of their actual implementations are just so interesting and compelling that one can still actually look past many of these faults and see the hidden gem that lies underneath."

The reviewer from Pyramid #30 (March/April 1998) stated that "Many people have thought the premise for the game is sick. Well, it is. But, that's what makes it fun. There's no quest for secret, lost treasure. There's no time-clock ticking away as you try desperately to save the world. There's no alien spaceships or fantastical powers. There's just good old fashioned, psychotic violence - something that our mass media entertainment powers have been bringing us on prime time for years."

Legacy

Sequels

A sequel to the game, Postal 2, was released in 2003. Director Uwe Boll bought the movie rights for the series and produced a film of the same name. Two additional sequels, Postal III and Postal 4: No Regerts, were released in 2011 and 2022, respectively.

Postal Redux

Running with Scissors developed a remake of Postal, titled Postal Redux, using Unreal Engine 4. The project was announced in November 2014, initially targeting a 2015 release for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

  • for Postal on GitHub