I thoroughly enjoyed The Gunk. From a gameplay standpoint it’s a very enjoyable puzzle platformer that is not unlike a stripped down Ratchet & Clank mixed with Luigi’s Mansion. The Ratchet & Clank comparison is a bit thin because there really is very little combat but there’s something about solving puzzles using gadgets all while 3D platforming that leads me to that feeling. And sucking up the gunk is very reminiscent of the vacuum mechanics in Luigi’s Mansion. The Gunk doesn’t bring a lot that is new to the table but it was all very fun. It’s a short game that can easily be completed in 4-5 hours, and that’s always a welcome sweet spot for me. The game has a fairly simplistic story with themes of environmental clean up, responsibility to one’s self, the people in our lives and the planet we live on, friendship, love and trust and teamwork. The voice acting is superb and the characters Rani and Becks are one of the game’s highlights.

There are a few issues with the game currently. Occasionally clearing gunk doesn’t trigger the restoration mechanic and I had to reload and repeat the process to get it to work. And on one occasion the game spawned an invisible enemy that prevented me from progressing given I couldn’t see it to kill it. Reloading fixed the problem. These annoyances are minor but are present toward the latter half of the game. The game also has frequent loading points toward the end with load screens sometimes as often as every 30-60 seconds. There are reasons for this that crop up later in the game when you have to return to certain areas and new tasks stretch the time out between load screen triggers. It’s another minor problem on the Series X|S but I can imagine it would be very annoying on the Xbox One.

Despite these limited issues I really think Image & Form did an amazing job with their first 3D game. It’s a wonder how seamlessly they move between genres and I’d say that this feels like one of their finest games to date. It has heart and fun gameplay and lasts just long enough to enjoy without bloat. I had a great time and am really looking forward to what they do next.

The Gunk is a lovely 3D puzzle platformer with Luigi's Mansion-esque vacuum mechanics and Metroid Prime-esque object scanning. In many respects, it punches above its weight... but in just as many, it falls a little short.

What I liked:

• The art direction! The character designs are unique. The world is vibrant and full of contrast. The textures and materials lend everything a believable, lived-in atmosphere.
• The puzzles! Plenty of "ah-ha" moments. Lighting and level layouts hint at solutions without holding your hand.
• The story! Great art direction, a reasonable amount of conflict, and a satisfying resolution.
• The controls! Most indie platformers lose me here, but I felt in control of Rani's movements, even during uncommon tasks like vacuuming.

What I thought could be improved:

• The scanning! It's an alien world, so you'd think you'd be scanning every dang thing, but after the first couple of chapters, new objects slow to a crawl. I completed my encyclopedia, but I want more flora, fauna and lore! (I also wish the scan result paused the game like it does in Metroid Prime instead of covering a third of the screen.)
• The combat! There isn't a lot of it, but what's here still grew pretty tedious. I unlocked all but one upgrade, but it remained my least favorite aspect of the game.
• The score! Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful, it just felt a little out of place on occasion. I'd be engaged in a puzzle at my own pace, and the orchestra would swell on a loop as if waiting for some dramatic moment to happen. It was a little distracting.
• The bugs! I had to restart three times during my 6-hour playthrough. I'd assume I was missing something, look up a walkthrough, and realize an event wasn't triggering or a platform wasn't rendering.

Above: What am I standing on? 😅

Complaints aside, if you like 3D story-driven platformers, The Gunk is worth your time. I'm interested to see what Image & Form cook up next!

I've been a big fan of the SteamWorld games so I was excited to see Image & Form take a stab at something new. Not only was this a new IP but it was their first foray into 3D and this style of game. The Gunk is best described as a throwback third-person adventure game like you might have found around the XBox 360 and PS3 era. The challenge is light. the path is extremely linear and you're only going to get about 4 hours of content unless you decide to replay it a second time.

The Good:

• It looks and runs great a majority of the time. Running on an i7-10700 and RTX 3070 with maxed settings, the environments are beautiful and kept me at a high, smooth framerate in all but one specific section (I'm looking at you giant-elevator-in-the-garden).
• It feels good. Moving around the world and sucking up gunk feels smooth and responsive. Perhaps the only gripe I can find here is that Rani's jump feels a little too weighty and may cause you to fall short on some leaps. Fortunately the penalty for death is... nothing. You simply respawn from where you fell and can try again.

The Bad:

• Very short. I beat The Gunk in about 4 hours and got 82% of the achievements without really trying. There seems to be basically no extra depth in terms of special collectables or secret areas. There are barely even any branching paths as you run through the game.
• Lacking in challenge. While the later game does have some more interesting puzzles and enemies that require more than point & shoot, it's still mostly lacking in the need for any real precision or effort. The only time I ever died was either from falling off a cliff or walking the wrong way during a confusing story sequence. Even when that does happen, you are spawned back to moments before you died, with no penalty whatsoever.
• Dialogue and characters are rough. In the SteamWorld games, silliness and dad jokes and simplistic characters are part of the cartoony charm. In The Gunk, where effort was clearly made to make more realistic personalities and a sense of relationship history, things don't quite mesh. The voice acting is way over the top to the point of being childish and obnoxious.
• Story is complete nonsense. I'm not sure what else to say here. It's just bad.

Overall:

It's tough to recommend pulling the trigger on The Gunk at the full price of $25. It provides a pretty short experience and doesn't do anything particularly novel or well. For those on PC Game Pass it's a much more reasonable ask to install it and devote a few hours to a solid if unexceptional experience.

Pros:

• Beautiful game. Art design was on point. Music and VA excellent.
• Controls (movement, aim, shoot, scan, skip, etc) are not perfect but pretty close. Responsive and intuitive.
• Fast travel points were well spaced, and should cater to a wide range of play styles.
• Nice story
• The equipment upgrade system is good, where upgrades are useful but not required (with one exception) and the material cost is forgiving, never feeling too grindy.

Cons:

• Most of what dropped this game from a solid 4 stars to 3 is minor bugs and optimization complaints. Hopefully they are ironed out during the coming months:

• Loading times on XB1 are pretty awful, especially in the last third of the campaign. A minute of loading, 2 minutes of gameplay traveling across a small space to hear a few voice lines, then another minute of loading, rinse and repeat.
• Colors overlays often appeared on edges, or even occasionally covering the right half or the whole screen, depending on the direction the character faces or moves, clearly not in a way that was intended, and making for great difficulty navigating a couple of platforming areas.
• The final chapter, reaching the dome, was bugged on a couple of floors where a section of gunk couldn't be fully sucked up without some very creative acrobatics. Again the intended progression of tasks here was obvious, this was not a case of a misunderstood puzzle. It is bugged.

• Gosh it would have been nice to have a map. A number of times, I paused the game and when returning 15 or 20 minutes later, I can't remember which path I came in from, which path I had already visited, and which path I needed to see next. Much of the world looks the same, which would be fine, if there were another way to distinguish paths, such as a map... even as is it would have been much more tolerable if testing a path didn't require another minute of loading time each direction.
• Wish there was more puzzle to it. There were so many opportunities for puzzles and very little implementation. The necessary steps to advance through an area are usually obvious within a few seconds of entering, making the actual doing of many of the tasks feel like busy work. This is especially true of the swing bridges. I don't like having to go back and forth so many times. There is no challenge, it feels like filler.
• Some more challenge to the enemy encounters would be nice. It's an adventure exploration game first and foremost but it has some enemies and miniboss style fights so an option for increased difficulty seems appropriate.
• Collectibles would be nice. There are a few places off the beaten path which are clearly meant to be bonuses but they only reward more of the same materials that are already found in abundance throughout the campaign. Having those special spots hold collectibles instead would give more of a sense of accomplishment and make the platforming run-around feel more worthwhile.

The Gunk is a very, very short game with not much gameplay variety or variation. The things that elevate it above many other short little action/adventure indie titles are:

I ADORE the art style. This is often half the battle with me. I have trouble liking games when I don’t enjoy how they look. Celeste is an unfortunate victim of this. The game feels great to play and I love the challenge but I honestly just think it’s just kind of ugly....so I never played much of it.

While there isn’t much depth to what you’re doing gameplay-wise, what little you are doing (running, jumping, sucking and scanning mostly) always FEELS great. The controls are absolutely on point. The jump is tight and satisfying, the sprint feels good, climbing up ledges feels good, sucking up gunk and collectibles feels good and all the collectibles have satisfying sounds and animations. There’s an attention to detail here when it comes to controls, animation, and sound design that makes just the base-level interaction you have with the game feel good at all times. Something I wish more indie games paid attention to. All games SHOULD, ideally, feel good to play. Even a simple game where you’re not doing very much. Hell, even a game focused on story where the gameplay isn’t the main draw SHOULD feel good to play.

It rarely takes control away from me. The serviceable environmentally-conscious story is mostly told through comms chats between your character and her girlfriend back at base camp. Occasionally the game will show a brief cutscene of a door opening up, or an area returning to verdancy, but that’s about it until near the end of the game where more cutscenes than I’d like DO start to show up.

In summary, it’s a good game. Is it worth the 25 dollar asking price on steam? Almost certainly not. But on gamepass, where I played it, it’s an easy slam dunk that I think most people would at least mildly enjoy for the short 4-5 hours it lasts.