This is the two hundred forty-fifth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred forty-fifth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has air-dashed into view. It’s Gumgem, by DAZEL, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Rescue the prince in a procedurally generated castle!

That’s right, this time it’s a prince who needs rescuing.

Gumgem is a precision platformer. It’s heavily inspired by Celeste in particular, borrowing that game’s moveset nearly wholesale. I am OK with this, because Celeste is one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s even included in the bundle! If you haven’t tried Celeste, I highly recommend doing so.

Gumgem is a smaller game, relying on procedural generation to create a new castle to jump and dash through each time. Well, it says “castle”, but it looks more like a cavern. Maybe these strange candy people build their castles like caves? Regardless, the evil gummy bear has taken over the castle and captured the prince, so it’s up to us to navigate rooms full of deadly spikes, gummy bear soldiers, and other hazards to rescue him. Each run is a sequence of 14 rooms, each of which is sealed upon entry and must be unlocked. The gates open either by defeating all the enemies in the room (by dashing into them), dashing into all of the chandeliers which act like switches, or nabbing the key from an inevitably spike-filled area.

To achieve this, our heroine can jump, and also perform a dash (usually mid-air) in eight directions, just like Madeleine from Celeste. She can also cling to and climb walls like Madeleine, although she never tires out and can therefore cling to walls as long as she pleases (this doesn’t make much of a difference, since walls are often covered in spikes anyway). Usually she just gets one dash before needing to land again to recharge it, but dashing into enemies or chandeliers will recharge her dash mid-air, letting her perform some cool aerial maneuvers. This is especially important when facing the spider enemies, dangling from their silk threads. Spiders can only be defeated by hitting them in their weak spot in the rear, but hitting them elsewhere causes them to rotate a bit, and recharges the heroine’s dash, allowing for multiple mid-air hits to open up the spider’s vulnerability.

DAZEL highly recommend a gamepad for Gumgem, but I disagree; as with Celeste, I found it much easier to make precise directional inputs with the keyboard. The heroine’s dash can change direction mid-air, which might be easier with an analog stick, but otherwise I strongly preferred the keyboard. In the training area, there’s a final test that tasks players with dashing into all the chandeliers within a time limit, and without touching certain red walls or floors. I found this far too difficult with a gamepad, but I pulled it off with the keyboard after a few attempts.

Entering the castle proper, I never found anything quite so challenging again. The procedurally generated rooms are fun enough to navigate, but they never produce the devious gauntlets that defined Celeste’s levels, making Gumgem feel gentler by comparison. I suspect more complexity was originally planned: in the training area, special walls that cannot be climbed are introduced, but they never appear in the main game. As I explored the castle, I rarely felt I was more than a few jumps or dashes away from my goal, and had little trouble avoiding the spikes and baddies patrolling the caverns.

Sure, sometimes I’d find a room that had a particularly tricky section, but equally I’d find rooms with whole sections I never needed to enter. Gumgem also mitigates potentially frustrating random elements by giving its heroine five health points, so she can land on a few spikes here and there and still make it through. There are even hearts that refill a health point scattered around, including some hidden ones that players can suss out once they know where to look. This — plus the fact that runs are pretty fast — meant I didn’t mind trying several runs in a row as I learned to make more progress. There’s a final boss, which took me several attempts to figure out and defeat, but even then I didn’t mind repeating the castle again to reach it. I challenged myself to arrive with more health than I did last time, so I’d have a better chance of victory.

I did achieve victory after several attempts, with a final run time of 5:49. I liked the ending, too. I liked a lot about Gumgem, in fact. It has beautiful pixel art, a bit lower resolution than Celeste but with a similar style. It uses a blue-grey, green and red color scheme that makes every room easily readable, while looking good. Animations are lovely, sound effects provide great feedback, and the retro-styled music is good too. Sure, it sacrifices the sublime level design of Celeste, but its procedural generation provides a lot of replayability with a mostly constant level of challenge. It’s the kind of game that players might return to for a few quick runs when the mood strikes them, perhaps trying to set a new personal best time while they’re at it.

I recommend Gumgem to anyone who likes precision platformers, especially Celeste. If you missed it in the bundle, it’s sold for a minimum price of $2.99, including versions for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and the GameShell portable console. And if you like it, and haven’t tried Celeste yet, that comes highly recommended as well.

That’s 245 down, and only 1496 to go!