GONNER2

GONNER2 is a procedurally-generated roguelite platformer from Art in Heart, and the follow-up to the cult-quiet original GoNNER. You play as a small, fragile, deeply committed little character running errands for Death herself, pushing through dark and unpredictable levels that erupt with colour in a way that feels almost handpainted. The core loop is simple to understand and genuinely hard to master: run, shoot, lose your head (literally, your head detaches on taking damage and needs to be recollected), die, start over. If that sounds punishing, it is. But it is also the kind of punishing that pulls you back in rather than pushing you out. The aesthetic does a lot of heavy lifting here. GONNER2 leans into its own visual noise - the world is dark and grimy until it suddenly is not, bursting into vivid sprays of colour when things get loud and violent. It is the kind of look that belongs to a game with a strong point of view. The soundtrack follows the same logic: ambient, slightly unsettling, and then chaotic when the screen fills up. Art in Heart clearly put intention into every layer of the experience, and that shows even when the gameplay feels frustrating. What works is the rhythm. Once you find it - which takes a few runs - movement and shooting start to feel almost musical. Head management (picking it up, not losing it too far, matching it with the right backpack and weapon loadout) adds a tactical layer underneath the chaos. Weapon and head combinations change your playstyle meaningfully, and discovering a new pairing that clicks is one of those small wins that keeps a roguelite feeling alive. The boss encounters are creative and visually distinctive, each one feeling like its own small event. What does not always work is the on-ramp. The game drops you in with minimal explanation and expects you to learn through failure. For players who came from the original, that is fine. For newcomers, the early runs can feel more confusing than difficult, which is a different and less satisfying kind of hard. The procedural generation is competent but occasionally produces layouts that feel unfair rather than challenging. And at 70 percent positive on Steam, it is worth knowing that this one has a real audience but also a real set of complaints - mostly around accessibility and clarity. For the right person, which is probably someone who loved the original, or who has patience for games that demand fluency before they open up, GONNER2 is a compact and genuinely crafted experience. It is not a long game. It is not trying to be. It knows what it is, and mostly it delivers on that with style and a strange, warm weirdness that sticks around after you close it.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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