Indie diamonds in the rough: Nongünz

Shoot and die a million times in this twisted nihilistic procedurally generated action platformer. If Dark Souls, Meat Boy and Spelunky had a child it would be Nongünz.

Developer: Sindiecate Arts
Game Engine: [Unity] (https://unity3d.com/)
Price: £4.99 / Steam
£4.99 / [Fanatical] (https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/nongunz)

So do you like roguelikes? Do you like games with a simple premise but a lot of depth? Do you like games that don’t do any hand holding? Do you like getting angry with what you are playing? Do you like pain? Yes? Great, then send a thank you letter to Sindiecate Arts and buy Nongünz cause they build a game just for you.

Nongünz is a roguelike action platformer where you control a skeleton with a gun. The main concept is that you delve into procedurally generated dungeons and you kill grotesque creatures collecting different types of loot. Every time you die you start again. And this is as much as the game is willing to reveal to the player at first glance.

I have to say that I haven’t played a lot of games like this one. Although I played more than a few hours I am still not quite sure what I am doing and what is the proper way to move forward. The first time you open the game you see a bedroom and a white figure waiting for your orders. This is the menu of the game. There is a number of objects inside the room some of which don’t seem to have any particular purpose. In order to start the game you have to sit on your desk and play on your computer. The main character is the aforementioned skeleton and the starting point is something that resembles a gothic cemetery, which is the base of your operations. There are different buildings in the cemetery but don’t ask me what they are doing. There is a merchant and a place where you store your items between deaths but you have to experiment to figure out what is the purpose of each building. As soon as you are ready, move to the far right edge of the map where is the entrance to the dungeons.

Inside the dungeons, your main job is to kill monsters. This is not an easy job and most of the times you will find a quick and painful death. Dungeons are separated into rooms which are depicted in the minimap of the game. At one of the rooms usually far from the entrance, you will find the final boss of the dungeon. These are very hard fights and they feel almost impossible to win especially if you haven’t started taking advantage of the game's collectibles.

Collectibles come in different flavours like trading cards, guns, captured skeletons and human parts. You will find most of them inside chests and the rest you can buy through merchants. What is their purpose and how you use them though it is up to you to figure out. Most of the players hate hand holding but Nongünz is serious about not providing any information to the players through traditional means. As far as I remember there is almost no text, not even in menus throughout the game. Some of the collectibles are easy to figure out like guns. But for some others, it will take you more time to understand how they fit into the game’s logic.

My suggestion would be to play the game as is and don’t look into any of the available guides. I think it is part of the pleasure to discover all the mechanics and how everything works in the twisted world of Nongünz. If after a while though you feel like it is too much, here are two guides this one and this one about the game.

Nongünz is a rare commodity among modern games. It is hard and is not afraid to punish the player every step of the way. During your travels in the dark twisted world of Nongunz you might not find comfort but if you persist you might find the pure joy that comes with discovery and experimentation.