Oh dear, I'm writing a news story about Garn47, which means I now have to explain Garn47.
Okay, so hear me out: Garn47, developed by the largely mysterious solo developer/artist/musician Floombo (she wears many hats), is a very strange open world exploration sandbox that started out hidden in a Friday Night Funkin' fangame, but you can get it now direct on Itch free. It is deeply strange and you should try it. Ideally figure it out yourself. And if not, watch one of the many youtube videos trying to explain just what the hell is going on.
It looks and sounds like either someone's very first flailing attempt to make a game, or some kind of nonsensical shitpost. Probably a bit of both. It's exactly the kind of bad that only someone who really knows what they're doing can produce. It is intentionally clunky and abrasive in a way that Cruelty Squad aspires to be. And for those who dug deep into it, they found something weirdly resonant. Or perhaps it was just the game's charming mascot, an extremely scrunkly low-fi typo elemental named Car.
However it happened, Garn47 caught on and has been a regular fixture across many big Youtube channels. With development now Patreon-funded, major updates expand its strangely dreamlike story, giving a hungry community more secrets to hunt for and ARG-adjacent puzzles to solve. The latest release—the 'Glorgle Update', whatever that means—feels more like an overhaul. A new, more polished, slightly more accessible Garn.
Take a peek in the new trailer (presented by Car) below:
From just a quick poke around the new version (and you can download older ones to compare yourself if you so wish), everything feels more like a 'real game' now. The image is no longer as aggressively upscaled, making things more legible, and the world is more detailed and easier to visually parse. There's new puzzles and challenges, and your vision is augmented now, with powerful flashlight eyes to help you navigate some of the darker, spookier tunnels.
Floombo's Youtube channel is also FULL of new music, including several tracks marked as being for new boss fights, so there's probably a good slab of new content to explore, for those returning. But if you've never played before, I dare not spoil the strange experience that you're about to have. There is so much to explore, so many weird passages and easter eggs and characters to meet. You'll probably get lost or stuck, but that's okay. Keep pulling on threads and you'll figure out how to progress the main story.
Or maybe you'll tap out and start yelling at me on social media for inflicting something so baffling on you. Either works.
Garn47 is free and on Itch, and you'll probably want to press 'H' at some point to turn on Helper Mode. What does Helper mode do? That's for you to discover.
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