The Gunk is a new project from Image & Form Games, a studio best known for the SteamWorld series and also their first fully 3D title. And it’s pretty good.
The game plays like a third person action adventure with platforming and slight focus on exploration and puzzle solving. And it’s hard to not see the influence of SteamWorld Dig in its design. As you explore an alien planet you landed on to find something good you could sell, you will be gathering resources for upgrades, just like you would in Dig. And even the titular “gunk” substance is reminiscent of mining in the Dig games. We even get a “huge robotic hand” again, though this time it’s used for shooting and sucking things in.
That said, the overall experience of The Gunk is more streamlined and similar to a linear action adventure. There are occasional optional dead ends with resources, some of which require solving additional puzzles. Scanning different things unlocks further upgrades and this process is also mostly optional. But unlike Dig, you move forward down a specific path most of the time, solving problems that prevent you from doing just that along the way. There’s also a slightly bigger emphasis on the story (although the story did play a big part in Dig games too) and you can’t change the path through the locations like you could in Dig, but that is to be expected from a modern 3D title (I see you snickering in the corner, Red Faction).
And while the game looks nice, the music is wonderfully fitting, the characters are cute and the story is intriguing, I couldn’t help but think that this is more of cool idea done well, not a title that is truly exceptional or super fun to play. It feels more like Dig 1, which was then expanded into the stellar Dig 2. So I could only hope that the next 3D title from the studio will only get better, now that they’ve got their feet wet.
I liked The Gunk, even though it’s not amazing. It’s a good game that also lasts a nice 5-6 hours, so it gets to a satisfying conclusion before it starts getting boring. But I do hope that the next game will be even better.