Dare, Bluff or Die (Found 1994 PC Game)

Jewel case of the CD-ROM (image from ultradrives.com)

According to the very few websites mentioning its existence, Dare, Bluff, or Die: A Role Playing History of the Wild West is a video game released for IBM PC in 1994. It seems to be at least educational in nature (the cover describing "Multicultural Exploration spanning 1500-1900 AD"). Several games database websites (namely allgame.com and GameTrailers) give information about the release date as well as the publisher, but not a lot more can be found.

Screenshot from the archived ultradrives.com listing.

It was developed by Stylus Multimedia and published by Motherlode. Very little is known about the latter: Motherlode, in 1991, published a PC conversion of the game Golden Immortal (which is, by the way, one of the first CD-ROM game ever but also one of the rarest and most obscure video games nowadays) and was located, according to allgame.com, in Las Cruces (New Mexico). Although this information may be accurate, Motherlode, Inc. doesn't exist in the State of New Mexico corporations database.

Motherlode, Inc. logo from the back cover of Golden Immortal.

Despite the great lack of information about Dare, Bluff or Die, there is evidence that it does exist: the (now defunct) website ultradrives.com listed a copy for sale in 2008, for just one dollar (said listing can be accessed today via the Wayback Machine;, and its image has remained in its databank of files). The item remained listed up until mid-to-late 2010, when it was assumingly sold. Additionally, a copy of the game appeared on eBay in 2012, but was either sold or removed (the circumstances of the auction's ending are not made clear). Until another copy of this game shows up for sale and someone is willing to purchase and rip it, this game will continue mystifying seekers of the rare and obscure.

The game was lost until somebody found a copy and released it on September 11, 2015 for Found Media Week. You can download it here.