Garn47 is described as “an adventure game where you explore to find secrets and meet new friends,” and it just received a major overhaul with version 2.4.4, otherwise known as “The Glorgle Patch D.” Confused yet? So are we, and that’s entirely intentional. Garn47 is an odd, unsettling fever dream of a game that was originally hidden inside another game (Friday Night Funkin) that was released on Newgrounds in 2020.
You can download Garn47 yourself from Itch for free. Developed by the artist and musician Floombo, the game is inexplicable in a way that makes playing it a delight. It feels like walking through a mid-2000s, 3 AM Adult Swim commercial. Earlier versions of Garn47 felt like an experiment, but the latest version makes it feel significantly more like an actual game. As for what the “Glorgle” update actually means, we’re not sure anyone besides Floombo knows.
The game started out as a tiny project, but its bizarre nature caught the attention of a lot of YouTube streamers and helped skyrocket its popularity. Now, Garn47 has a Patreon and has gone through several updates, making it just slightly easier to parse. That said, all of the updates are just as weirdly named as this one (2.2 is The Friendly Update, 2.3 is The Green Update, and 2.3.5 is The Tickle Patch.zip.)
You play as a shadow figure reminiscent of Slenderman, who moves through the world with jerky, staccato movements. It’s as if everything about the game is designed to leave the player with a sense of unease. The shadowy environments only add to that, and while the most recent update gives players a flashlight, it just shows how dark everything else is. Garn47 is best experienced without much knowledge ahead of time; dive in, explore, and then start poking around the community to try and put the pieces together.
At a time when many mainstream games feel like relative copies of one another, Garn47 preserves the weird side of gaming and represents one of those quirky, semi-unexplored corners of the internet with a small but passionate community. The game isn’t finished, but there’s enough content to keep you playing for several hours and likely leave you scratching your head afterward. Garn47 is tagged as “surreal” on Itch, and that’s probably the most fitting adjective for the experience.
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