Gutwhale [Xbox]
Developed by Stuffed Wombat, Gutwhale sees you trapped in the gut of a giant whale, armed only with a rifle and a single, reusable bullet that you’ll have to pick up after each shot. A roguelike that takes place entirely within a series of tiny chambers, filled with a variety of aquatic enemies and …skulls, you can shoot left or right, as well as aim directly downwards holding A (which is a slightly awkward choice instead of just aiming with the left stick). Getting the coordination between your hands and brain with such limited space to move, whilst trying to quickly nab the bullet back after every shot, definitely proves to be pretty tricky.
When you first begin, you can equip one of three hats to enable certain modifiers; Ugly Hat, the standard option giving you three hearts; Cool Hat, which takes you down to one heart in return for extra points as you progress; and Workout Hat, which gives you a higher jump, but knocks one heart off your meter. Additional hats can be purchased for use from the shop as you go, replacing whichever hat you started with until you end your run, plus another hat being unlockable in the main screen after completing a certain task. Descending deeper into the belly of the beast, you’ll drop through multiple chambers split into three separate levels. It doesn’t take long to clear rooms, but equally, it doesn’t take long to die either. Depending on your number of hearts, you’ll respawn after death a limited number of times, before being crushed by a falling campervan.
Gutwhale has a simple pixel art style, with a very meaty, organic frame to the screen. Levels are similar in style to Downwell, with you dropping down through floors, and levels are small but well detailed throughout. Within the options menu there are a bunch of things you can change, with some having surprising secret options you might miss. For SFX, you can toggle on or off, but there’s also a third option titled ‘Soundeffect’ that hilariously causes ‘soundeffect’ to be repeated any time a sound effect would normally happen. Additionally you can choose to alter the level of ‘Bulge’, which was definitely a first. You can leave it switched off (the preset mode), turn it on for a slight bulge, or crank it up to Extreme Bulge and this will cause a bulging effect of the screen, akin to the bulging gut you’ve found yourself in. The music is varied, with fast paced, bassy tracks that add to the intensity. Another option you can toggle is to switch the music off or on, or enable a whistling soundtrack that oddly works well too.
At the end of each level, you’ll come across a hungry wee frog who just loves to chow down on bullets. Feed him enough and you might just get yourself a reward. After the frog you’ll drop down in to the shop, where you can purchase additional hearts, bullets and hats using the points you’ve earned - or forgo your urge to spend, and net yourself some bonus points in the process! There’s one hat in particular that is pretty much the only thing you’ll ever want to buy, so having a wider variety of choices, or other benefits to certain options would have improved this.
Gutwhale actually provides a surprising amount of challenge for such a simple premise. The limited space in each level leads to some speedy deaths, as some are more crowded than others and don’t leave you much time to react when trying to catch bullets or even when just falling into the new level after completing the previous one! You’ll get to grips with the enemies and their attack patterns, as well as which ones you’ll tend to see as you go through each level, but due to the random nature of the spawns, it can sometimes take you by surprise. It’s very easy to become super frustrated at yourself for simple, easily avoidable deaths that you will find yourself doing repeatedly.
Priced at £4.99 on the Xbox Store, Gutwhale is one of those games that can be completed in as little as an hour or so, but could easily take well more depending on your ability with games like this. It is a lot of fun to play, and has real “just one more try” energy that sucks you in completely. After finishing all three levels, you can then access a doorway that will allow you to make your way out of the whale - if you’ve completed enough tasks. Five tasks ranging from killing 50 frogs, to completing the game in under 2 minutes, will unlock boxes that can be used to stack and climb your way out. You can go back for additional runs even after completion, and we used this time to then try out the different settings in the Options menu! If anything, we’d have liked for there to be a bit more to the game. Once you get the hang of things, you can get through it pretty quickly, so having more levels or even something like an endless mode available, would have been great. We’d love to see another Gutwhale in the future, as the mechanic of collecting your bullet each time really adds a fantastic layer of challenge, and makes it a lot of fun to play, so we will definitely be keeping an eye out for Stuffed Wombat’s future titles.
In the end, we decided to give Gutwhale the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Have you played Gutwhale yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Ratalaika for the Gutwhale Xbox review code!
