Developer: Art in Heart
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Playable
Rrp: £6.99 (Humblebundle, Steam and Epic) £7.49 (Gog.com)
Gonner is hard. It’s definitely the toughest game I’ve played as far as I can remember. Perhaps I’m just trash at this game but for me its utterly brutal. Most games give you some level of invincibility once you’ve been hit but that doesn’t seem to the case in Gonner. You can get hit over and over again and very quickly lose all your health. This is mitigated somewhat by what…. uhh, skull you have on. Yeah this game is also pretty weird just in general.
At its core this game is a sidescrolling shooter in the classic sense, you can only shoot in the direction that your character is facing. However unlike many of the classic shooters of yesteryear you can’t shoot above or below you. As I said depending on what skull you have on (which you can swap out if you find another) the amount of health you have will change, but they also have other benefits such as not losing your gear when you get hit. The other pieces of gear are your backpack and your weapon again each with a different attribute.
I can’t not speak on the artstyle, I absolutely love the simplistic designs of the various creatures, each type has a very distinct look to them so you have an easier time identifying them. The world itself fills in around you, almost as if you can’t see far ahead, this sometimes has the effect of making what would likely be a simplistic level feel more challenging since you can’t see whats coming up.
I quite enjoyed Gonner, my main criticism is that until I looked at the Steam store page for the game I had no clue what the premise for the game was. I appreciate oblique story telling but I do like at least now SOMETHING about the world or my motivation when I start a game, even if its vague,
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