Squirrel with a Gun is a 2024 Collect-a-Thon Platformer developed by Dee Dee Creations and published by Maximum Entertainment where you play as a squirrel wielding a gun. It's like Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator, just a hell of a lot more brutal for the humans involved.
The aim of the game is to collect Golden Acorns across a sandbox environment, and, along the way, take out a secret organization. No sweat for a squirrel who can wield guns, right?
Squirrel with a Gun chirps tropes such as:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The squirrel can be dressed up in anything found in the boxes scattered around the open world. Some provide in-game benefits, and a handful are necessary to collect all the Golden Acorns.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Certain costumes can only be earned by finishing the Super Platformer level in a certain number of tries or defeating Ratatoskr enough times.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The Mini-Game Credits and Ratatoskr boss fight give you a SMG with infinite ammo, so you can concentrate on blasting your target.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: Obviously, squirrels can't actually shoot guns, seeing as they are smaller than most guns. Doesn't stop our protagonist, however.
- Artistic License – Explosives: At the end of the Father boss fight, the squirrel drops six grenades into the tank he's hiding in before closing and standing on the hatch. Not only should the tank have been broken beyond repair by this, not only do both the Squirrel and Father survive this, but the squirrel uses the blast to launch itself through a hole in the ceiling to escape the underground complex!
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: The squirrel can fire at anyone and anything. If that wasn't enough, doing so is encouraged to get some of the Golden Acorns.
- Artistic License – Physics: Played with. The squirrel in question is able to quite unrealistically fire guns that are several times its weight and/or size. This includes being able to somehow lift a sniper rifle roughly twice its length from head to tail, and fire it while aiming down the sights. However, the kickback from firing these guns is much more realistic. The squirrel will stagger back from any shot it fires, with the knockback being stronger if in the air or in a vehicle. This is even used as a means to gain additional height when jumping.
- Battle Theme Music: Rock music
kicks in every time combat begins. - Black Comedy: There's just loads of it throughout the whole game.
- Blade Brake: Downplayed, in that there's no blade, but the squirrel does a variant with the bipod from the sniper rifle at the end of its takedown animation.
- Bloodless Carnage: No matter how many bullets or explosives are unleashed onto the squirrel's targets, not a single droplet of blood is spilled.
- Bookends: The game begins with the squirrel dropping into a secret facility via an open sunroof and running through it. The credits sequence sees the squirrel going through the facility in the opposite direction, before leaving via the same sunroof.
- Break Meter: Enemies and bosses have a yellow meter that fills as you shoot them. Max it out and they become stunned, letting you perform a takedown on enemies and unload on the weak points of bosses.
- Brutal Bonus Level:
- The 1.4.3.0 update adds a Super Platformer challenge, which is an upwards climb on mishmashed assets. Reach the top and you can challenge Ratatoskr.
- The 1.5 update adds an arena you can challenge if you have 65 Golden Acorns collected.
- Collect-a-Thon Platformer: The aim of the game is to collect the Golden Acorns, à la Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie.
- Double Jump: The squirrel can extend its jump by shooting downwards a few times.
- Evolving Title Screen: The squirrel wears whatever cosmetics you had last on it on the title screen. Additionally, the title might change depending on what it has on, e.g. having the coral snake fur pattern changes the title to Snake with a Gun.
- Explosion Propulsion:
- For a given definition of an explosion; in addition to the classic Rocket Jump, the sniper takedown sees the squirrel flip the gun around backwards and fire a shot, sending them flying toward the hapless target.
- Father's boss fight ends with the squirrel dropping six grenades into Father's tank, shutting the hatch, then riding the blast bottle-rocket style into a hole in the ceiling.
- Funnel Cloud Journey: Before the bonus boss Ratatoskr, Mother and Father summon the Norse squirrel and he summons a tornado that razes the neighbourhood. Squirrel then has to jump over the house debris to make his way over to Ratatoskr.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Missiles on the helicopter are labeled "Heckfire."
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Mother and Father attempt to destroy the squirrel by firing a missile at it, but it grabs the missile and sends it right back at them.
- Iconic Item: Among the unlockable cosmetics are Conker's fur and sweater, Secret Squirrel's outfit and walk animation, and Tippy-Toe's pink bow.
- Made of Iron: One scene shows the squirrel getting blasted into the air by a tank missile launched by Father, and yet it somehow survives the explosion which is strong enough to kill a squirrel in real life. You can wear the bomb suit in this scene without taking any explosion damage.
- Meat-O-Vision: As the opening cutscene shows, the things the squirrel is stealing are actually some sort of agency MacGuffin, but the squirrel just sees them as golden acorns.
- Mini-Game Credits: You can shoot at the credits that appear with an unlimited-ammo SMG. Shooting all of them unlocks an achievement/trophy.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Both bosses are solid examples of this:
- The first boss, Father, shrugs off an enormous amount of bullets/explosions while fighting the squirrel in a tank. At the end of the fight, the squirrel drops six more grenades down the hatch and jumps on top of it to keep it closed. Father reappears shortly after this, none the worse for wear, now piloting a helicopter.
- The second boss, Mother, teamed up with Father survives the helicopter in question crashing multiple times. At the end of the fight, both of them end up in a crashed helicopter half-sunk into lava, before the squirrel redirects a missile straight into the cockpit. Precisely what happens to the two of them is unknown, but Mother, and Father with her, are blown clear by the explosion while still in one piece, without so much as the slightest Clothing Damage.
- No-Dialogue Episode: None of the humans in the game utter even a single sound. Subverted for the squirrel.
- No Plot? No Problem!: Who is the mysterious organization? What are they doing with the devices the squirrel is mistaking for golden acorns? The game sure isn't going to tell you, it's just going to let you loose to inflict mayhem.
- Ragdoll Physics: Especially when the squirrel starts blasting the humans like there's no tomorrow. Of course, the squirrel themself isn't immune, and can easily be ragdolled by explosions.
- Recoil Boost:
- Justified, as you're a squirrel weighing less than a pound firing guns whose recoil energy far exceeds their physical mass. You can even shoot downwards for a rudimentary Double Jump.
- Invoked with many of the takedowns; such as the pistol takedown starting with a backwards shot so the recoil launches you under the target, the SMG takedown seeing it used as a jetpack to riddle the target from above, and the sniper being used as a melee weapon by using the recoil to launch the gun stock-first straight into the target's face, then snap their neck by pile-driving their head into the pavement.
- Rocket Jump: Once the squirrel finds a grenade or rocket launcher proper, this is quite possible, and required to reach certain Golden Acorns. However, it will cause enormous self-damage unless the squirrel wears a certain suit to protect itself from explosives.
- Screaming Warrior:
- The squirrel gives a savage Battle Cry both before its unarmed "Frenzy" takedown and after falling far enough to trigger a Shockwave Stomp.
- When the sniper rifle's takedown is used from long range, the squirrel gives off a loud "REEEEE!!!" as it turns the rifle into a cruise missile headed stock-first toward the opponent's face. note
- Shockwave Stomp: Not a bespoke ability per se, but if you fall far enough to hear the squirrel emit an angry shriek, whatever you land on will wind up on the wrong end of a massive shockwave.
- Shout-Out:
- AKIRA: The squirrel attempts Kaneda's bike slide with an RC car in the intro for Father's boss fight. Keyword: attempts, as the combined weight of the squirrel and an SMG causes the tiny car to flip over, hurling the squirrel from the car and separating it from its gun.
- Secret Squirrel: Equipping the fedora and trenchcoat accessories replaces your default movement animation with Secret Squirrel's trademark hands-in-pockets strut.
- Superboss: The 1.4.3.0 update adds Ratatoskr as a bonus boss you can challenge. Defeat him enough times and you can take on an even tougher golden version of him.
- Three-Point Landing: If you press jump right before the squirrel hits the ground after a long fall, it will land superhero-style, instead of bouncing off of it.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: The end of the Mother boss fight sees Mother and Father being blown into the sky. The last we see of them is as twinkles with acorns in the middle.
- Unwinnable by Mistake: The Switch 2 version of the game has broken physics. When you try to rocket jump, you don't bounce off the explosion, but instead merely hurt yourself and drop the rocket launcher. Since rocket jumping is required at one point, this makes the game impossible to finish.
- Variable Mix: The neighborhood theme segues between different versions depending on where you're at. For example, being near the saloon gives the theme a bit of a wild west makeover, and the theme becomes more joyous when you're at the wedding area.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Once the tutorial level is cleared, the squirrel is free to explore most of the world straight away, with an additional area unlocked after beating the first boss.
