Gish is a complete opposite of last week’s take-your-time game. Gish is also reminiscent of the “old” game design targeting gamers who defined themselves by their prowess rather than attempting to appease a large crowd of casual gamers. There’s a bit of a learning curve, even for the simplest of actions (jumping) but the challenge is what makes it desirable among traditional gamers.

The story of Gish starts off with the typical kidnapped princess trope. You play as Gish, a blob of tar that can slide into narrow spaces, make himself “heavy” (not sure how this makes sense in terms of physics – perhaps solid is a better term), and become sticky, allowing you to effectively crawl up and down walls and hang upside down from the ceiling. The theme is about delving deeper into the sewer underworld of the city in your search for your kidnapped girlfriend. You run into small minions that remind me of stylized chihuahuas (not so much long as square, but the gnashing teeth are ever-present) and larger voodoo-doll-like monsters.

Gish (the game) is a platformer ala Mario, but much more focused on handling the physics of Gish (the character) rather than the more simplistic movements of Mario. As a blob of tar, Gish is heavily influenced by physics and patience can sometimes be more rewarding than impatience. One of the more difficult skills to master is the simple act of jumping. From a standstill, Gish can jump fairly high, but it takes several rounds of pushing buttons in the right combination and at the right times. Specifically, you start off with a little hop (spacebar). You hold the down arrow key to depress Gish flatter. Then you hit the jump key and the up arrow key to jump a little higher. Repeat with the down key to flatten him further to jump higher. Another spot where perseverance can pay off is using Gish’s sticky mode to climb up walls. If you go too fast around a corner, you can effectively make Gish lose his precarious sticky hold on the wall and send him flying. This may, or may not, be your intended effect, but it can get frustrating if you haven’t mastered the jump and the general slippery physics. If you think of Gish as a blob of jello, inertia can affect where you end up sticking or the direction of your jump.

I found the aesthetics meshed well together (art, sound, UI) and nothing particularly stood out to me as not fitting in. Gish’s evil-looking eyes and scowl match the strange enemies you meet. The tiles for the platforms and other objects combined with the darker palette combine that cartoony and sinister feel from the sprites. I was actually most impressed with the use of light and some moveable objects will redirect the light beams. It was not particularly useful, but was a little bit of light fun to play with.

The controls are a different story. While I do admire Gish for its reflex-based challenges, I was more frustrated at trying to master the controls than anything else. The use of arrow keys instead of WASD require a small bit of rewiring as ASD are reserved for sticky, slippery, and heavy modes respectively. For the first boss, I kept hitting slippery, wondering why I wasn’t able to kill anything and didn’t realize until another game session that I was mistaking slippery for heavy. The graphical difference isn’t as clear as sticky (Gish gets covered in spikes or hair vs. a thicker outline) The physics also make the controls a bit harder to master and estimating simple jumps became more difficult with more variables to keep in mind. I feel the game would be make more sense with a controller than a keyboard.

All that said, I would play beyond the one week, but I don’t see it as a game I would finish in a short amount of time. In all likelihood, I would probably lose interest before I finished the game, but it is well-done and worth the chance to play. It is a different sort of platformer with a slightly different set of skills to exercise and play with.