The Gunk

(Yes, this blog uploaded itself a little early originally. My bad.)

The mystery thickens.

I like a good mystery out of my games, and what can be more mysterious than a game that doesn't even really spell out it's details even in a full reveal trailer? Mircosoft's reveal even for their Xbox line-up was full of games which wore their hearts on their sleeve and thus didn't really stand out all that well, such to the point where it was the outliers who won my attention. Take for example, this title we're talking about today, and the heck of a time I've had scrounging up an idea of what to expect from it. Call it a gamble, but I've chosen to believe in the obscurity of this game as a prelude to something great, even if I can't prove it, so without further ado I want to talk about 'The Gunk'.

Revealed at the Xbox game event (or should I say 'teased') 'The Gunk' appears to be, at least conceptually, a mix between the industrialism of steampunk and the chaos of alien nature. The teaser showed these sides to the world at least, with a spacefaring explorer touting her genre-necessary mechanical hand (seriously; what is it with Steampunk and metal robot hands?) and being surprised by a gelatinous, seemingly-toxic black substance known as 'The Gunk'. (Hey, that's the name!) Now although the trailer showed us precious little to really go on, what it did tease was a rather lovely looking 3D world space that proved to be both eerie and colourful when it needed to be. It looked pleasing, and I would expect nothing less from the team behind SteamWorld.

That being said, 'The Gunk' is a 3D title and 'Image & Form' games cut their teeth on 2D affairs that proved both satisfying and challenging for fans, how would that translate into a whole other dimension? Well the developer's CEO talked a bit about that on a blog for the Xbox site which doubled as an exclusivity announcement. It's starts off as a pretty standard case of wanting to go out of one's comfort zone and reinvent what they called game design within their own walls, but I was peaked when the started talking about the amount of processing power they were demanding in order to realise the game they wanted. Though the game doesn't look excessively taxing at a glance, apparently some of the systems they were working with was enough to bleed hard frames on current gen development tools leading to a situation between picking the vision or performance. I mean sure, that's arguably the same cycle that every game goes through before optimisation, but the way this guy talked about it made it sound like their vision was so grand it threatened to set consoles on fire or something. Luckily for them, as they frame it, Microsoft picked up the project when asked and bought it over to their powerful machine. (Although apparently it's also releasing on Xbox One so I don't know what to believe right now.)

The game, in concept, is said to follow a duo of adventurers who come down to this planet in search of resources and end up as part of the biggest wildlife clean-up project of all time. Tasked with dealing with this parasitic entity called 'The Gunk', the gameplay will reportedly shape up as the player clearing the world of this gross substance whilst the nature that has been fed on starts to grow back. Apparently this also lends itself to some mystery as the scavengers happen across ruins of ancient civilisations, because of course they do. (Every floating rock in space in home to at least 10 long lost alien races according to games.) And thus the game will revolve around uncovering a mystery, whilst struggling to survive, with a healthy heap of interpersonal drama thrown in there for good measure. (Solid enough.)

There hasn't been much talk about how the main gameplay will actually unfold, but what we've seen actually invokes some of those 'key indie game' vibes that every goes on about. In fact, this very concept vaguely reminds me of that 'Outer Wilds' game that blew everyone away not too long back, with the space-faring concept and the deadly mysterious corruption. Although, in the way that the developers describe they certainly make it sound like a more methodical and relaxed title in the vein of 'Slime rancher', (in feeling, that is) with the removal of 'The Gunk' seeming to be a chore rather than a super involved task. But then some outlets have spoken about monsters and challenging puzzles so we could be looking at a little misdirection on this title. Again, information is so scattered it's hard to read the pulse at all!

What does sort of strike me odd about this game, and has rubbed a few others the wrong way too, is the fact that this title is an Xbox exclusive. Now that isn't to say that I don't understand the concept of exclusives, of course I do, it pays for smaller studios to seek out investment from big companies which can result in exclusivity. I rarely agree with the practice but when it comes to indie games I can certainly turn a blind eye. That isn't, however, the explanation that 'Image and Form' are going with. In fact, the way they tell the story it was their troubles with performance which drove them to the Xbox camp in the first place and they ended up on the Series X because it would be the only console capable of achieving their grand dream. Now personally I have no idea what's under the hood for this game so that story could be 100% accurate for all I know, but I will say that it does seem somewhat odd for a developer to come and and subtly claim that the Playstation 5 is technologically inferior. It's as though Microsoft stipulated that these Devs try and turn their own story into a marketing campaign for Xbox- very shady if true.

An aspect of the game's marketing which I am more positive about is the presentation, which looks to combine a few styles to come up with an interesting and unique feeling alien planet. Though the exploration locations that we've seen so far have been in shaded/harsh areas (either because of a heavy canopy or just the way this world exists) the images and screens are never blinded because of the team's focus on luminescence to light scenes. This not only allows them to reinforce the oppressive harsh colours (which I'll imagine will clear up as The Gunk does) but to also get a bit crazy with the lighting colours and make the game pop in screens. This alone makes the game look a tad magical and whimsical, and I wonder how the team intend to keep things fresh going forward if they've started this strong already.

In conclusion, The Gunk is a curious looking indie title with an absolutely terrible title that I literally beg them to be rid off. (Seriously, it does not stick to the mind at all, doesn't really infor
m any newcomers as to what the title is about, or really even sound that nice to say.) Though it might seem strange to say, with everything we know about this game so far this might be one to file under the label of 'games with relaxing meta-objectives to them'. Playing an intergalactic nature Janitor isn't quite as unique a concept as you'd really think it'd be, but as a fan of metagames within games I understand the appeal of slow work towards a larger goal. Might just keep an eye on this one if we ever actually make it to the next generation.