Y’all…it’s Tetris, but with a gun. It sounds crazy, and I wasn’t entirely convinced by the screenshots, but after literally seven minutes of playing, Guntris has me hooked. That’s a lie, I was hooked after the loading screen. Ignore the score and keep reading. It’s worth it.
Tetris is one of those games that I fondly remember watching my mom play when I was younger. There is something cathartic about making those lines disappear. Especially when your play is rewarded with that always welcome four line clear.
Now imagine you are planning your moves and a bandit appears just to the right of your board. What do you do? Pull out your six shooter and blast him is the obvious answer, but why? Turns out if you don’t, he’s going to throw dynamite at you. And if you don’t shoot the dynamite out of the air, it adds a line to the bottom of your board, giving you less total working space. The audacity.
If you think you can spare the bullets, you can always shoot the exploding barrel on that newly added line to get rid of it. But you might need that bullet later to eliminate future bandits. Luckily, you are rewarded a bullet for every line you clear. All the way back up to the six you start with, but no more. Meaning on top of worrying about bandits and falling Tetris blocks, you also have to be mindful of timing your line clears so as to not waste precious reloads.
What else could go wrong? How about two bandits at once? Or three? What if a bandit pops up behind you on top of that water tower? Or maybe in the small window of the barn? Yep, these are all things that can happen. And like classic Tetris, the longer you play, the faster the blocks fall. And the less patience the bandits have before they start tossing dynamite. At a certain point, you turn all the way around to shoot a bandit, and when you get back to the board, your block has already fallen. It really forces you to prioritize your focus.
When things start to get too out of hand, that’s when you turn to the whiskey. Don’t reach for that bottle yet. Clearing lines and shooting bandits is how you fill your whiskey meter here. (If this game ever gets merch, ‘Clearing Lines and Shooting Bandits’ is the perfect shirt.) After consuming the whiskey, time slows down so you can focus on your next move. You also have infinite ammo during this time, so clearing bandits is another good option.
What more could you gain by adding a gun to such a beloved title? How about the ability to blast away pieces of falling Tetris blocks? Yep, you can do that. When you have a ‘Z’ piece falling but nowhere for it to fall just right, just shoot away part of it so it fits your grand design. A literal game changer.
This is one of the few circumstances where having the rubric is a burden. Following it results in not the score this game deserves, because there isn’t a narrative or much known about our gunslinging Tetris player. The gameplay is solid, the music and other sound cues are all on point, and the replay value will have me coming back for a long time.
In this scenario, I’m going to say ignore the score entirely and just buy it for yourself. It’s on sale for $1.49 until September 20th if the $1.99 is a little too steep for you to take a chance on. I promise you won’t regret it.