If you go onto Itch.IO right now, you can play a space blaster game called Gar-Type by a small developer named Lumpy. So many weird chemicals are going through my brain after this game. I’ve been captivated by the Gorefield trend since I first played Lasagna Boy back in 2020, a hide and seek platformer also on Itch.IO that I didn’t realize until today was actually part of this trend. I really only wrote about that game because the mechanics and graphics in it were so entertaining. It was also one of my first indie games–I mean really indie, pixel art trash, but fun trash. In Lasagna Boy, you play a lasagna delivery boy who has to run around a house hiding from a monstrous Garfield, that’s right the comic strip cat, named Gorefield. This is apparently a meme from an art subreddit on Reddit called r/imsorryjon. I’m not going to even link to it, because it’s pretty strange, and I don’t want to horrify my LEGO Harry Potter site visitors. But basically, it’s a community dedicated to monstrous art of Garfield, made essentially for humor

Anyway, r/imsorryjon has inspired a bunch of indie games on itch.io like Gar-Type, Lasagna Boy, and others; and some of them are, well, in all fairness, quite good–and not even really that creepy. It’s one of those weird phenomena where horror, despite its sometimes, well, horrifying nature and sometimes even revolting nature can be turned into something kind of fun. You might be familiar with this if you have ever seen the original Toxic Crusaders cartoon that aired in the 80s, or even played the demo for the new video game based on this cartoon. It’s mostly family friendly you could practically say, but the original movie was considered part of the Troma genre, a very not-nice and disgusting, some might say hilariously so, cult-followed horror genre. The town in the cartoon is even called Tromaville. There was a similar phenomena with the old Beetlejuice cartoon in the 90s that was based on the original movie. Again, kid friendly.

What is Gar-Type?

So, like I said, I just want to talk about this game Gar-Type, because I just played it for free on the Itch.io website.

From the itch.io page for the game:

“GORESTAR, the living planet, is on a direct course for Earth.
It’s time to debut our secret weapon duo:
Ace pilot Jon Starbuckle, and his prototype starfighter, Gar-Type D.
Your mission: save humanity! Defend the Earth from the alien invaders!”

It features some wicked pixel art and fun SHMUP mechanics. SHMUP, or shoot-em-up is that classic retro genre where you’re generally flying a spaceship of some kind and blasting through obstacles as the screen scrolls, either right or up–in this case right. The game is playable in your browser, and all that’s needed is a computer mouse. From what I can tell, it features three missions on three different planets with four bosses: Floating Gorefield, Liz Mimic, Anti Gore Type Weapon, and the Gore Star Core. They’re all equally horrifying.

The game features a challenging enough level of gameplay that really appealed to me. There are floating platform elements, various enemies clustered around the edges of the missions (many of which spray bullets), and there are your traditional power ups through the missions to change your weapons into fun sources of enemy destruction. The pink, purple, white, and black palette  is really pleasant actually and lends to that weird factor in the whole Gorefield vibe. For some reason if something is too horrifying, just drape it in pink and make it melt and I’m totally on board.

My Review of Gar-Type

The levels were definitely a challenge. I actually never made it past the first mission. One person on Itch.io said their wrist hurt after beating the game. I feel no need to torture myself like that, but it’s a fun little game if you have a moment to kill and want to play a decent SHMUP with good music and sound effects without spending any money or even really dowloading anything.

If you want to check out this game, the link is here: https://lumpytouch.itch.io/gar-type I don’t know what Lumpy’s plans are, but they seem to be making all sorts of games, many Gorefield based, and they are a talented game developer, for which I applaud them.

If you want to check out some gameplay from Gar-Type, I’ve uploaded some to my YouTube channel. I didn’t beat the game or anything, but why not include some video, so be sure to check that out. Always appreciate subscribes to the channel too.

Thanks for reading Mr. Dave Pizza!

https://youtu.be/77nsBQi9u5Q