The Gunk is as gunky as the title suggest, not that it’s bad, just very mediocre. And because it’s a Swedish made game, it hurts me when it doesn’t hold up to a better standard.

The gameplay feels pretty much the same throughout the whole playthrough. Upgrades barely do anything major which in turn makes scavenging kinda useless. Environments can be lush and beautiful but is for the most part just dark and dull. Also, one other thing I kept wondering is how Rani and Becks could communicate with these aliens despite not being able to read their language.

The Gunk is a rather awkward little game at times. While it does a lot right, it also feels like a game that needed just a little bit more mechanics to actually have it all work properly.

Take the core gameplay of using Rani's glove to hoover up the titular Gunk feels well realised but it all becomes a little too one note and you start wishing there was more active Gunk or more ways to destroy it.

The same goes with the enemies in the game, while there is combat and its perfectly functional, there just isnt enough variety in enemy type to really make them anything more than a bother. The resource collectables and upgrade systems suffer as a result as you never feel like you need any of them to progress.

Its a shame as its a very pretty game and unlike some of the other reviewers, I enjoyed hanging around with the leads a lot and while there was a lack of variety, this only really became a real issue as the game hit its endgame thanks to how short the game is. It feels perfect for gamepass because of this.

Overall its a game that has potential but be it through budgeting or scope, that potential never really is met.

Simple platformer with a nice little story. I honestly did not know what to expect heading into this one but I left pleasantly surprised. Its a very short game around 4-5 hours so you can easily beat this game within 1-2 sittings and I say its worth a playthrough and the best part is that its on game pass!! ( consoles at least idk about PC game pass).

My main gripes come from the characters which I did not care for at all and the bugs that I came across. Some weren't as bad but I ran into a bug that softlocked my game causing me to force restart it which luckily I got an autosave before it happened.

Overall its a nice little game! wouldn't recommend at full price however either play it on game pass or wait for a good sale.

First up this year is this charming little platformer that arrived on Game Pass at the end of 2021. I got a lot of enjoyment out of this - you play as Rani (not the Time Lord adversary of The Doctor played by Kate O'Mara) who along with her partner Becks travels around space in their charming little space ship looking for salvage on random planets and moons. They come across a strange, desolate planet that is covered in reddish brown gunk, stifling the ecosystem underneath.

Your job? Clean this shit up and restore life to the planet. As you progress, the history of the planet opens up, and the reason why it's become so polluted.

Rani has a very useful prosthetic arm which acts as her weapons and tools. It sucks up the gunk, shoots at various objects, scans things in a No Mans Sky type game mechanic etc. These tools can be upgraded as you progress.

There is minimal combat in The Gunk - a few critters emerge from the gunk which can be hoovered up or zapped. It's about as straightforward as combat can be but it's not really a game centred about fighting.

The Gunk does absolutely nothing new or original but what it offers is charming and even relaxing at times - clearing away tons of gunk is therapeutic and the way the old world re-emerges clean and fresh looks quite brilliant. I must give a shout out to the lighting in this game - it's beautiful. The skies, the colours, the shards of light breaking through the clouds, the torch effects in caves - cranked up to 4k on a big telly, it's a lovely looking game.

The relationship between Rani and Becks hovers between annoying and charming, and I think it depended on my festive hangover status as to which side of the coin it fell, but the backstory that opens up is another neat little feature which adds a bit extra to the game.

The Gunk can be finished in around 4 to 5 hours - add in a couple more to mop up all the achievements and it's an enjoyable experience all round. I won't say the overused 'perfect for Game Pass' line but.... well, it's perfect for Game Pass. There's nothing new, certainly nothing groundbreaking but what it does, it does well and it's a really good antidote for any Halo Infinite multiplayer frustrations or any other similarly rage-inducing gaming issue.

Worth a look, Game Pass-ers.

I only played one session, and it seems fun. I think I agree with much of what's been said about the game -- it doesn't seem like there's much more than what's presented to you from the outset.

But the alien flora is pretty, and there's some charm with the characters (who do talk a bit much for my tastes, but it's ok).

Might come back to it. No score yet.

The Gunk was not for me. It's not a game I would ever describe as poorly made, but it was hard work to get through. There was no aspect of this game that I liked. The visuals had the capability of being impressive, but due to the nature of the game, it spends most of the time being ugly. The music had the same problem. There was also not much worth caring about mechanically. Even with all of the upgrades at the end, it never really felt all that different from the start. I'm hopeful that The Gunk finds its audience. I'm sad that I'm not a part of it.

English/german below

Charming and short Gamepass game. It took me 4 hours to play the game and I enjoyed the title throughout. It is not intoxicating but very pleasant to play and really chilled. Great melodies, nice and personable style and a good setting by Rani and Becks.

Both characters work well together and the rest of the world is also nicely presented, the alien language sounds really cool.

It could have been harder in a few places, had a bit more variety in enemies and gameplay, and was a bit trickier overall. Backtracking could also have been incorporated here.
I could always get rid of the dirt now.

The base is right, 6/10 smudge blisters.

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Charmantes und kurzes Gamepass-Spiel. Ich hab 4 Stunden für das Spiel gebraucht und hatte durchgehend Freude an dem Titel. Es ist nicht berauschend aber sehr angenehm zum spielen und richtig chillig. Tolle Melodien, hübscher und sympathischer Stil sowie eine gute Vertonung von Rani und Becks.

Beide Figuren funktionieren gut miteinander und auch der Rest der Welt ist schön dargestellt, die Aliensprache klingt ganz cool.

Es hätte gerne an einigen Stellen schwerer sein dürfen, etwas mehr Varianz bei den Gegnern und dem Gameplay haben und insgesamt etwas kniffliger sein können. Auch hätte man hier Backtracking gut einbauen können.
Den Schmodder könnte ich jetzt immer noch wegmachen.

Die Basis stimmt schon Mal, 6/10 Schmodderblasen.

An amazing platformer.

The Gunk is an exploration of an alien world and a strange substance simply called The Gunk. The Gunk is a pollutant on the world, and the player and her NPC partner are working to remove it, and as they do it beautifies the world. I can’t tell you how many times I got exhilarated as the world was restored in a sparkle of green, blue, and oranges sprung up.

At the same time, much of the game is just sucking up The Gunk. There’s platforming and minimal combat, but neither feels deep and while there are upgrades to the player's arsenal they never feel necessary. There were a couple of points where I was wishing the game had a navigation arrow to show where the next destination was, but that only occurred once or twice for me.

Pick this up if you want to explore something new and different. After about four hours it’s clear this is a shorter game, but it’s an enjoyable short journey and one I ended up completing after around 6 hours. I had a good time playing through this, but this is much more about the journey than the challenge on the path.

If you want to see more from me: Check out my video on this month of Game Pass games: https://youtu.be/vUqrUn1HrwQ

Completed with all achievements except for "All In" unlocked (950G). In a departure from their excellent SteamWorld series, Image & Form take their first steps into 3D with The Gunk, an exploration and light platforming game set on an alien planet. Perhaps the key mechanic features in the title, as our protagonist Rani finds the world plagued by a gloopy substance that she dubs simply "the gunk", which she quickly takes as a goal to clean from the planet using her vacuum cleaner-esque handheld gadget. Exploring the planet and seeing nature bloom into life as Rani sucks up this gunk is undoubtedly satisfying and remains so throughout the game's fairly short (typically sub-ten hour) length, though a sense of excessive repetition does start to creep in towards the end of the game.

Ultimately there's not a huge amount to the gameplay beyond the interaction with the gunk - navigating the world is fairly linear and while there's some puzzle-solving and platforming gameplay, and a few combat encounters, it's rarely much of a challenge, serving more to offer some greater variety. Away from the mechanics, there's a serviceable underlying narrative to drive forward the gameplay and the dialogue between Rani and her travelling companion is fun to follow - and overall The Gunk is a perfectly solid game, just not reaching the highs that we've come to expect from the SteamWorld games.