THE GUNK MAP UPGRADE
One of the core functions from the start is a scanner, used to identify non-interactable plants as well as useful resource deposits and eventually enemies, and each scan fills up a section of meter, that, when topped off, opens up a new upgrade that can be installed back at the ship if only Rani has enough materials. Pumpkin’s vacuum is good for more than just gunk-eradication, and can also hoover up the resources necessary to add new abilities to it. It only takes a little tutorial-level exploring to find a good landing spot for the Bunny, and with a base set up Rani can now make use of the ship to upgrade her robo-arm. Interestingly, when the gunk is cleared the local plant life springs back up, changing the desolate hellhole into a lush, beautiful and mostly-fungal jungle. While Rani has two good arms one of them ends in a massive orange robot hand she’s named Pumpkin, and although a little bit broken for finer grasping work, it can still vacuum up pockets of gunk. Of the Bunny’s crew, Becks is the practical one keeping everything running while Rani is more exploratory, and the game opens with her being dropped off to find a suitable landing spot. The Gunk is a sci-fi action platform adventure not so much about cleaning up a planet as discovering what it is that’s being covered and suppressed by the sticky gross mass feeding off its life force. But why is so much of the planet covered in a pulsating goo? There are a good number of mysteries lost in the planet’s past, and the only way to figure them out is to explore every inch of the world of The Gunk. A wasteland planet kicked out an unusual energy spike, so while it doesn’t seem likely anything is there, a combination of hope and desperation cause them to land anyway to see if there’s something worth harvesting. Even a beater like Becks and Rani’s ship Dust Bunny costs an arm and a leg, and they’re not exactly rolling in cash and fuel. If there’s one thing that will be as true in the future as it is today, it’s that space is expensive.