![]() There are some clever puzzles in the end of the game where you have to think a bit more but not much. If you get stuck it is usually enough to just look around to find a seed or something to shoot at to open something. I do not think that any of the “puzzles” were difficult either. Unfortunately as far as I could see there is only 3 types of monsters in the whole game which feels like a missed opportunity. The gunk can mutate into a few types of monsters when it feels threatened. There is no real danger in the game and no urgency so you can take time exploring and finding all the different other flowers that you can hover up to get raw material for upgrades. One flower seed, when planted in a shining pool, grows up to a fungus stair case. In addition to the Gunk that needs to be cleaned away there are a bunch of different flowers that can be used. The game has Rani running around trying to figure out where the signals comes from and then how to save the planet. It behaves like a bull and you have to go to their back-end and “suck” away from the yellow big thingy to kill them. This is the biggest of the three monster types. You also can scan things, something I did not realize is very important because for each item you scan you earn some points towards new upgrades, both for your glove and more general stuff like run faster. The glove can be upgraded so that it can shoot energy bolts and some other functionality. The base functionality is to suck up Gunk. She has one mechanical glove instead of a hand and this glove can be upgraded with different functionality. You control one of the space haulers, Rani. The game play loop of The Gunk is actually pretty simple. Other than that though I do not think the sound is special at all as the Gunk itself is completely silent and there are basically very few other animals in the game. The voice actors do a great job and the banter between them works pretty well. In the sound department there is not much to say. Not sure why but that section always tripped everything up and basically slowed the game to a few fps for a few seconds. ![]() I played with 4K/ultra settings (even though my laptop is “just” 1440p) and the game ran perfect except for a a few hiccups in the last level when you travel up an elevator. It is obvious this game was made for consoles as there is basically no options at all to change anything except resolution and a quality setting which doesn’t tell you what it does. All you see is the character you are controlling, Rani, in a third person view. There is nothing in the screen that shows any extra information (map, compass, health etc). One thing I really like is that the game does not have any HUD at all. The game has a bunch of different areas, each with a pretty distinct look from jungle to abandoned mines and even a wasteland where everything is grey and dead.’ ![]() When you get rid of the Gunk the colors flow back and you get treated with a colorful and beautiful vista. The premise with the game is that the Gunk has suppressed all life which means it is grey and dull. I wouldn’t say it is the most beautiful game I played but it isn’t ugly either. I played the game on a Windows Laptop (Asus Zephyrus G15 with Ryzen 5900HS and Nvidia RTX3080 Mobile GPU). The game is out for Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X. The Graphics and Soundīefore we go into the game play let’s focus a bit on the looks and sound of the game. I won’t spoil the story more except that in the end the game becomes a rescue mission for a whole alien civilization. Things are of course not as they seem and they soon realise the planet is overrun by something they name The Gunk. They of course are down on their luck and really need to score to not risk loosing their ship. You follow two space haulers that are visiting a planet where they picked up a faint energy signal. Why am I bringing this up when reviewing the new game The Gunk from the Swedish studio Thunderful? Well, I finished this game. This means that even for a game I enjoy after a while I just loose interest or worse, come back 2-3 months later and realize I will never be able to get back into the game again and just leave it. The problem for me is that a lot of game companies decided that their games need to be a service and be brimming with content (looking at you Ubisoft!). At 51 with 2 kids and as tech lead at a company my time for gaming has to compete with lots of other stuff including coaching my kids in socker as well as other hobbies as 3D printing. Most of all I do not have the time any longer.
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