Gunk... Behind this barbaric English term, hides the denomination to qualify a viscous substance. Colloquially, it is used to name boogers (or boogers). But you will admit that The Booger as a game title, it would be less classy than The Gunk. Just as you will admit that even if it wasn't very interesting as an intro, I may have taught you something today that could save your life during an international evening at the ambassador's. Don't thank me, it's a gift.
So what is The Gunk game? It is an exploration and adventure game developed by the Swedish studio Image & Forms Games and published by Thunderful Development AB (which owns the Images & Forms Games studio). Suffice to say that I have absolutely no idea what the developers have created without having to look at their websites and their wikipedia page. Ah yes... They are responsible for the SteamWorld series and that's about it.
In The Gunk, you play as Rani, a member of a duo of space explorers whose goal is to find resources on unexplored planets in order to repay their huge debts. Unfortunately for her partner Becks, Rani is a woman who gets too involved at times and, more than looking for resources, what she wants is to save the planet they have just landed on from a mysterious evil. represented by a viscous substance (The Gunk). As luck would have it, Rani has an artificial arm capable, among other things, of sucking up this substance that infests this world. Which, between us, makes for a pretty cool vacuum cleaner. This arm can also be improved to add new abilities or strengthen existing ones as soon as the corresponding plans are unlocked and you have collected enough resources. Moving around in 3D environments isn't very complicated, just like the game itself, but everything lacks the fluidity worthy of the greatest titles in the genre. For example, it is impossible to climb on a ledge not highlighted with a whitish mark, despite the fact that it may be just as accessible as a ledge with this mark.
There are also a lot of invisible walls on many decorative elements and a certain heaviness of movement, but nothing serious Rani is easily controlled. The visual is clean, although better is expected for current production on such powerful machines in 2021. Apart from the graphics, the design is very post-apocalyptic with few colors before cleaning up gunk, giving way, once the area is clean, to very green and very natural environments in a style applied to the plants which is a little reminiscent of a light modeling clay effect. Voluntary or not, this gives a very nice rendering to the whole. The big problem with the game is that being 99% exploration with 1% "combat", the whole thing still lacks depth and variety in the situations, puzzles and game mechanics on the half- dozen hours of play needed to complete the whole thing. Because the competition is tough on this type of game. But even if it will not be remembered, The Gunk will offer a decent and sympathetic little adventure for any fan of the genre looking to fill his hollow tooth between two major titles.
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