Summary
Squirrel With a Gun delivers some funny combat and has some interesting puzzle solutions. Offering multiple solutions to a puzzle lets your creativity come to life. However, the game doesn’t do much to stand out from the other platformer games in the market. Unless you are interested in playing as a squirrel, there’s not much keeping you playing.
Developer – Dee Dee Creations
Publisher – Maximum Entertainment
Platforms – PC (reviewed), PS5, Xbox X|S, Android, iOS
Review copy given by publisher
What would happen if a squirrel got hold of a gun? That’s the premise the titular game investigates as a squirrel runs around collecting golden acorns across multiple settings. You must break into locations, dodge secret agents, and explore your surroundings to find collectibles. As your squirrel collects more items, they gain new outfits that confer certain benefits for future hunting.
The story of Squirrel With a Gun is simple; a squirrel finds a golden acorn. It’s actually a high-tech object from a secret laboratory, but the squirrel doesn’t care. Obtaining the “golden acorn” causes the squirrel to get trapped in a room. After getting out, a guard approaches and trips, dropping their gun on the ground. The squirrel picks it up, takes out the guard in a flashy way, and the game starts there.
It’s not an amazing story by any stretch and it’s easy to forget there was one in the first place. Given the premise of the game, having a nonsense plot isn’t unusual. It does feel like the set-up is unnecessary since you probably have more fun playing the game than seeing the story. Starting with a squirrel that has a gun and then running around would likely be more effective.
Squirrel With a Gun is a sandbox platformer with some puzzles and action. It’s not hard to get from Point A to Point B, but you are likely missing out on several hidden treasures. There are acorns to collect, treasures to obtain, and hidden secrets around every corner. You can also find outfits that give you certain bonuses that fit certain gameplay styles. Some places require special equipment to access, but they aren’t hard to obtain.
For platformer fans, there are several areas that you can freely explore. Like any adventure, you work your way through an area while gaining special equipment to explore dangerous locations. When you search buildings, you have the freedom to decide how you enter. If enemies are around, you choose if confrontation is necessary, not worth it, or just a fun activity. Several save points are easily accessible if you want to save your progress.
This makes it easy to retain your progress while keeping the fun of exploring an area. Failure is frustrating and costs you valuable acorns, making it a good idea to reload a save. The amount of exploration is massive, meaning you can search a small house for an hour and still find secrets. Freely choosing how you want to infiltrate locations with no wrong answers lets your creativity come alive.
All of this happens on the backdrop of an absurd premise with a squirrel shooting people with a gun. It’s silly, creative, and makes you laugh at how ridiculous things are. From trained agents unable to capture a squirrel to death-defying stunts that would kill normal squirrels, the charm is obvious. That premise ropes you in, keeps you entertained, and helps take the edge of what would be a disastrous real-life event.
The only downside is that the game leans heavily on that charm. Most of your time isn’t spent having your squirrel shoot targets. It’s doing complex platforming to find objects and solve puzzles to access new areas. At its core, Squirrel With a Gun is another platformer with an interactive world. While the squirrel can do crazy things like shoot the gun to jump, that’s the extent of gun usage for puzzles. Shooting objects or locks off a shelf doesn’t match the charm from earlier.
It’s a shame because Squirrel With a Gun could genuinely shine if it had more than its premise. There’s a lot you could do with a gun-wielding squirrel that could be silly and adventurous. Instead, most of the time is spent exploring the world and puzzle-solving like you would with other platformers. Once the charm wears off, it doesn’t differentiate itself from other platformers in the market.
This is not to say that you won’t have a fun time playing Squirrel With a Gun. But the excitement and charm eventually wear off and you realize that it’s just a regular platformer. Even the creativity and thrill of discovery wear off when it’s something you repeatedly do. With more ways to maintain that funny premise, this could be amazing. But Squirrel With a Gun doesn’t build on its premise and it’s just a silly platformer.
