See what I did there? No? Well, you might once you start reading about the game I’m going to be talking about today. It is from a developer called Cryptic Sea and it won awards for Innovation in Game Design as well as the grand prize at IGF in 2005.
The game is called Gish. Like De Blob, it has you rolling, jumping, sticking, swinging, squeezing and stomping around as an amorphous pile of goo. I think that it can fittingly be described as a physics-based puzzle game.
The object of the game is to get through levels as quickly as you can without taking damage or losing lives. You get more points the quicker you get through a level, for finding secrets, or defeating enemies. You’ll never run out of time, so if the fun of getting through the puzzle at all is enough for you, you can take your time.
Gish, being an amorphous pile of goo and all, has many forms that he can take on. In his normal form, he is a perfectly malleable pile of goo that can get around just fine on flat surfaces and minor inclines, and can also roll over most small obstacles. It’s when the more unique obstacles get in his way that he needs to do a little morphing. Want to make a steep ascent? Go into prickly sticky mode, get some momentum and you can crawl up walls, swing from ropes, even walk on the ceiling. If you need to fit into a tight spot or float to the top of some water, you can become super-liquified and, in turn, less dense, to accomplish these feats. You can also increase your density to increase your movement speed, topple down obstacles like breakable walls, sink to the bottom of a pool or even destroy some enemies.
That’s the Gisht of it. As per usual, I’ve made a short video demonstrating the gameplay. So that I don’t give away any solutions to the puzzles, even though the earlier levels are quite easy, I just ran around in the practice level for a few minutes to demonstrate the different ways of getting around and interacting with the environment.
You can read more about Gish as well as get ahold of a free demo at the developer’s website. It is only $10 if you purchase it through Steam.