Review: GORDY

Sometimes, in the business of critiquing games, there comes a moment where you have to ask yourself if your expectations of the creators behind projects are too high. Are you holding people, and their work, to too great a standard? Would you be strong enough, focused enough, bold enough to make the choices that lead to this game existing in the first place? Can you really say that, in their position, you’d do better than they ever could?

I think about all of that, and then games like GORDY fall into my lap to remind me that having standards is important too. Sometimes, games are hollow, ambling, and slapdash in their construction - being able to acknowledge those failings and examine them in detail helps us understand and celebrate how other games prevail where this particular experience fell short. And if there’s one thing to be said in GORDY’s favour, it’s that it isn't lacking for teachable moments, however much I may wish it did.

Developed and published by MyGrandfather Games

Released on July 11, 2025 for PC

In retrospect, it should have been telling that the setup for the plot was so minimal. We’re not given a ton to go on from either the opening credits or the bit of protagonist narration we receive - there’s a man, he’s living in a cabin in a forest, and he’s evidently been out there for a while. Following a bizarre drug trip sequence that is never brought up again, the man goes about his usual routine of hunting for food, only to happen upon a strange human-like creature who he adopts as his new friend, the “Gordy” of the title.

From there, we follow the man - eventually revealed through one-sided dialogue to be named Murphy - as he attempts to integrate Gordy into his life, even as it becomes clear to the audience that this is a profound error in judgment. There’s a few in-game days of prolonged hunting trips that are often interrupted in bizarre fashion, bookended by nighttime conversations that pile up the stack of evidence indicating Gordy is a threat and should not be treated lightly. Then, once the plot remembers it needs something for all the ham-handed foreshadowing to be setting up, there’s a climactic sequence of running and (MASSIVE AIR QUOTES) “gunning”, and then the game ends.

If that description makes the story sound basic and not especially interesting, it’s because the story is basic and not especially fucking interesting. There is no real effort made to delve into the motivations of Gordy *or* the thought process behind Murphy’s actions, no indication that they are anything more than the one-note caricatures of human behaviour presented to us. As far as the game is concerned, Gordy is just A Monster, Murphy is just A Talkative Idiot, and the story being told is just a string of meaningless events that happen before the credits roll.\

Speaking of Murphy, though, holy fuck is he a blathering waste of space. Part of the reason I’m struggling to gauge the game’s seriousness is rooted in how he, as the lone voice we hear for most of the runtime, seems to be trying and failing at basic comedy. Murphy keeps pulling out these lengthy anecdotes about pranks and Sasquatches and other inane material, filling the dead air during treks to and from the hunting grounds with these go-nowhere tales and observations.

I could make peace with Murphy’s chattering if the game were at least doing interesting things beyond that garbage, but alas the moment-to-moment play is as barebones as the narrative. Much of your time with this game is spent in transit, walking out of Murphy’s cabin and into the forest where the major story set-pieces - such that they are - will be staged. You’re carrying around a hunting rifle to shoot deer for sustenance, but for the most part it’s just walking and mentally begging Murphy to shut up. That lack of ambition to the design, already a soul-crushing burden on any player, is made worse by how inept the set-pieces turn out to be.

You see, the game does try to stage action scenes and build a sense of creeping horror… and completely fumbles in the execution. It’s best illustrated in an early sequence, where the player is asked to rescue Gordy from the jaws of a bear by shooting it as it runs around. Set aside that tracking the bear is a pain thanks to the decision to keep a layer of fog over the scenery at all times, or that the rifle feels weightless on account of no actual animation, just a gunshot sound and a muzzle flash. What really derails the scene is a lack of clarity to its tone; Gordy’s over-the-top screams and Murphy’s casual aw-shucks attitude suggest this encounter is meant to be read as absurd, yet the inherent danger of a bear attack and the serious conversation that follows feel ripped from a script with a very different mood.

So much of GORDY can be described that way, following up mind-numbing boredom with a hodge-podge of ideas that never coalesce into something coherent or meaningful. There’s a recurring bit involving animal carcasses being dumped off the side of a cliff that could be meant as dark comedy or as straight-faced foreshadowing, the game never tipping its hand as to its intent. A sequence where Murphy ventures into the nearby abandoned mine does offer a break from the familiar forest setting, but only so the game can tease supernatural elements that never pay off and force you to trek through dark grey corridors for exactly long enough to be tiresome. Even just the state of Murphy’s cabin, with stains on the floor and boards sloppily hammered over the windowless frames, begs questions that GORDY will never see fit to answer.

It's the sort of game where something as rudimentary as an NPC command feature feels too advanced for the work at hand. GORDY does allow you to tell the eponymous creature to stop, follow you slowly, run to catch up with you and chase down prey via use of the keyboard's number keys. The mechanic doesn't so much feel broken as superfluous; it mainly felt useful for keeping Gordy, the character, from lagging too far behind and didn't add much to the slim action on offer.

On the subject of the game's appearance, it is very much the part of GORDY where neat ideas went to die without much consideration. The choice to have all the game’s assets - characters, objects, the setting - constructed to look like low-fidelity early 3D games seems deliberate, and in a better directed work could have helped contribute to a sense of detachment from reality befitting a horror game set in the wilderness. There's a VHS-style filter and accompanying distortions over the player’s view which suggest to me this angle might have been on the creators' minds, though as with most things about this game there’s no exposition or diegetic features that offer clarity. It’s just more unexplained elements that distract through their sheer inexplicability.

There isn’t much to be said for the sound design here; it’s adequate and largely inoffensive, if underwhelming. The soundtrack has this calming quality that, in a better game, might actually have worked to lull the player into a false sense of security. What sound effects are present didn’t immediately irritate my senses, though this is unfortunately balanced out by Murphy’s voice actor doing nothing - or perhaps, failing to do anything - about the quality of material given.

GORDY likely wouldn’t pass muster as a short story and fares even worse as a game. For as brief as it is, clocking in somewhere in the one-to-two hour range, it manages to make every second of playtime feel like a waste. Nothing makes any kind of sense, nothing of value is said or accomplished, and nothing about the experience justifies the effort I assume was put into making it. I won’t call it utterly offensive to my sensibilities, but only because it’s neither interesting nor committed enough to try and engage its audience even in that dubious fashion.