Video Game / Garn47

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You receive an invitation from your dear friend, Car. Having no excuse not to, you heed Car's call and embark on your journey, which leads you to this page in the process.

Garn47 is an indie Genre-Busting Horror Comedy 3D Action-Adventure Collect-A-Thon Platform Game slash Crest-Like by Mexican developer Floombo (with help from her friends), powered by the Blender Game Engine.

Initially released on April 29th, 2024 as a Game Within a Game Mod in Hit Single through the latter's "Subterfuge Update", the game quickly became a invokedSleeper Hit, and on August 31st, 2024, got a standalone itch.io page for players to download it from, while receiving updates separate from the mod. Come V2.35's release in March 14th, 2025, Garn47 broke away and became its own full-fledged game after Floombo left Hit Single's team and took her work with her. Floombo plans to release the game on Steam as part of the upcoming V2.6 update.

In gameplay proper, you play as the eponymous human-like Garn47, the fastest Garn (according to your friend Car), with the primary objective of killing The Three Means of The Deep, who collectively serve the nefarious Carr for her own ends. You have a versatile moveset that's useful in multiple situations, including Flight, a Dash Attack, a Spring Jump, and a Ground Punch, which can be further supplemented by tools you'll find across the world. Another gameplay mechanic is the Q-Blast, or your "Q" key, a Context-Sensitive Button that triggers unique abilities in certain areas.

Emphasis is placed on non-linear exploration, unexpected gameplay changes and puzzle-solving, as the world is rich with secrets, minigames, and side-objectives for you to find, the completion of some of which reward you with Badges, items that are integral to progression because they unlock a difficult Boss Battle for every five you get.

The story reflects this design ethos; instead of directly expositing much, the game drip-feeds its story one piece at a time through the occasional cutscene and Story Breadcrumbs, and it's up to you to piece together what's going on in the world (as well as the lives of your friends). There are Multiple Endings to be found for the undaunted, most of which are locked behind a mixture of Equipment-and-Knowledge-Based Progression.

Totally Tropeular Tropes:

• A Dog Named "Dog": Although he may not look the part, Car is a car, as he himself has confirmed on the game's Twitter.
• All-Loving Hero: Car is a very friendly fellow due to him being very energetic and jovial, constantly making new friends and always striving to make the most of the world he finds himself lost within. Also, you're one of his 47 friends!^note Unless you're Garn46.
• Antepiece:
  • The First Floor of the Superstructure (where most players are likely to head to on a first playthrough after recruiting Car) takes away Garn47's Flight, to force you to contend with learning an important mechanic; exploiting the momentum from Garn's Dash Attack to slide off of the ramps that are dotted around to get onto higher platforms. Garn46 is your lesson on whether or not you got the hang of the Dash Attack. This also comes in handy for the Superstructure's Basement, where it is flooded and you have to worry about drowning underwater, and it features more ramps to drive the gameplay lesson home.
  • In Garr7C's room, there is a toy boat you can freely control by simply pressing "Q", and it can shoot cannonballs without constraint. In Garr7C's boss battle, where both him and Garn47 are in a cage, you have to use that same toy boat to shoot down other toy boats that Garr summons, in a bid to get a score of 25 while having to contend with a time limit.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • You can hold down "R" to force Garn47 to respawn at the spawn point of a given room. It's especially useful for whenever you happen to clip out of bounds, or you end up stuck.
  • Recruiting Car leads to major consequences for certain parts of the game — as such, if you wish to experience those parts without him, you can go to the Garmobile's Pit submap and feed him to a Meatworm to dismiss him. Though, you'll have to re-complete Car Mountain if you want him back in your party.
• Arc Number: Appropriately for the game, 47.
  • Car has 47 friends (Garn47 being one of them).
  • A few Garns riff off of the number 47, most notably Warn53 and Garn74. The Three Means of The Deep (who are themselves Garns) riff off of Garn47's numeric part of his name (Garn46 being a decrement of 47, Garr7C being a pun on the seven seas, and Garn7 using only the second digit of 47).
  • You beat the Desert Bus minigame for the "Desert Bus" ending by playing it for 10,000 seconds, i.e. 2 hours and 47 minutes.
• The Artifact: After the game split off from Hit Single and started focusing more on its own story and original ideas, the Chase Fight with 2017X (and his Suspiciously Similar Substitute Twenty17 in later updates) stuck around despite seriously lacking context that other boss fights throughout the game were given (as well as being a reference to Sonic Legacy (FNF)'s "Subterfuge" song). This eventually led to Twenty17 being declared non-canon to the game, and him and his boss fight removed altogether in V2.5 (with Garn46's rematch taking its place).
• Big "SHUT UP!": Garn47 can deliver a very big (and loud) one toward Drilly if they give one too many tips. He also makes sure to add a "please" afterwards.
• Black Comedy: When you recruit Car, he'll personally guide you to the Superstructure's entrance in the Main Area. Placed midway through his path, however, is an orange McLeven, who Car crashes into. The poor thing gets knocked into the air, complete with a car crash sound effect, and Car offers a funny apology in response:
  Car: Oops! My bad! I'll help you later!
• Central Theme:
  • The grief an artist has for their past scrapped projects, and what they do with it. Some characters in this game are lifted from the past projects of this game's lead developer, Floombo, that, one way or another, they ultimately had to scrap, and were given new life here.
  • The everlasting damage that abandonment does, the tragedies it leads to, and how strong social support can do wonders to heal it. The story's conflict was set into motion by Car and Carr's parents abandoning them and Carr going into villainy. Car was stopped from going down the same path his sister went down through his 47 friendships, especially with Garn47 and Drilly. One of Car and Carr's creations resents Car and Carr for abandoning it (which is resolved by Car apologizing to it for his absence, and giving it a blue life diamond). One of Carr's more villainous moments is when she abandons one of her creations, KeepMeSafe, through no fault of its own, which she then decides to verbally cement for good after you win its boss fight.
• Character Blog: Car has his own Twitter account where he posts updates on Garn47, silly videos featuring him, and retweets of fan art drawn for the game.
• Chase Fight: One of the secrets in the first version of this game is the 3D chase sequence from Sturm's Subterfuge cover, complete with 2017X pursuing Tails alongside a fire tornado moving up the street the whole time. In addition, you can only run so far ahead of the tornado, so you have to avoid 2017X's attacks and let him clear any blockades to let you reach the exit. Later updates replace 2017X with an entirely new character named Twenty17, and has you control Car rather than Tails.
• Context-Sensitive Button: Your Q-Blast/"Q" key is one, and it has differing functions dependent on which room you're in. In rooms where you have Car accompanying you, you can press it to call him over to you.
• Crunchtastic: Collecting Glorgles has the titular character spout out variations of the phrase "Totally Garnular!".
• Cute Kitten: Car, full stop. An All-Loving Hero that serves as the Mascot for the game due to his cute appearance and quirky personality - even if he may or may not be a car in the shape of a cat. His sister Carr also qualifies, even while serving as one of the game's Big Bads.
• Dash Attack: Holding down "CTRL" and "W" rapidly propels Garn47 forward. Useful for destroying destructible objects, and it has Mundane Utility in platforming puzzles where Garn's Flight is shut off.
• Developer's Foresight: You can beat the Desert Bus minigame without Car in your party. If you do so, you're rewarded with a Non-Standard Game Over where Garn47 muses that he forgot his friend, right as Car appears on the road, causing the bus to crash into him, fly out of control, and for Garn47 to scream and die.
• Diegetic Interface: Parodied, as you don't start off with a health bar — because it's a literal in-game item you pick up. Which, come V2.5, then gets thrown away once the real health meter pops up.
• Down the Drain: The Main Area's Golden City has an enterable pipe that leads to a sewage room (with Grimy Water), which houses one of the clues for the Code Temple.
• Driving Question:
  • Where are Car and Carr's parents?
  • What happened to Brimbo World? Going down the path to the "New Beginnings" ending reveals the answer, and it's not a happy one.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Because it used to be closely tied to a Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod in Hit Single, this abounds throughout the game's earliest versions.
  • The game was heavy on references to other game series like Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and even creepypasta characters from both communities, including the Glorgles originally being Sonic's Rings, an encounter with 2017X, and Hit Single's Yourself. After Garn47 became a invokedDivorced Installment, these characters were phased out or replaced with lawyer-friendly cameos and original characters throughout the updates altogether, likely due to legal concerns.
  • The Chase Fight with 2017X/Twenty17 deserves special mention, as it originally homaged Sonic Legacy (FNF)'s "Subterfuge", having you play as Tails, who's outrunning both 2017X and a fire tornado, while "Subterfuge"'s instrumentation blared in the background. This boss fight would survive all the way up until V2.5 after Garn47 split off from Hit Single, but with replaced background music, 2017X replaced with a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, and Car being the player character for this segment in lieu of Tails. Oh, and the fire tornado turned blue.
  • Originally, the game was designed for the purpose of unlocking hidden songs from Hit Single. It would be overhauled altogether to instead have collecting Badges through fulfilling a variety of conditions and killing The Three Means of the Deep as your main objective, with greater accommodations for exploration, playing as other characters, and item collecting.
  • The final boss you faced in V1 (which resulted from collecting all Badges added up to that point) was PraiseForAll. PraiseForAll retroactively became a Disc-One Final Boss after additional bosses that were tied to collecting Badges were added in later updates.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite The Broadcasted holding a grudge against Car (the one who made him), Car still cares about him and gives him a blue life diamond.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Car is normally a very friendly fellow who has 47 friends and loves to make more friends and still cares about his sister. But believe it or not, there is one person that Car despises, that being Garn46. His hatred towards Garn46 is yet to be known.
• Excuse Plot: Car sends you an invitation letter, your goal is to kill The Three Means of the Deep, and that's it. The more you explore the world and piece together the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot at hand, however, the more you learn there's much more going on than what's initially shown.
• Fetus Terrible: Good Memories is a giant fetus creature that is fought inside of the Formspire.
• Good Is Not Nice: The titular Garn47 has severe anger issues, prone to yelling at his friends, gives Drilly a very loud Big "SHUT UP!" that shocks and scares them (though the player has the option to apologize), and deals with his enemies violently. He is also the Playable Character and is stopping the Quirky Miniboss Squad.
• Genre-Busting: This game has elements of a 3D Action-Adventure Platform Game... except you have unrestricted Flight, with certain challenges (platforming optional) instead being dictated by restricting your movement options, most commonly jumping; and you can rarely be locked into a 2D section. You can collect Plot Coupons much like a Collect-a-Thon Platformer... except it's tied to objectives you'll have to go out of your way to find, and some endings don't even require them. The camera can freely shift between a third-person and first-person perspective, with some sections locking you into one or the other (and, rarely, itself being locked in place). It has elements of Metroidvania, especially the Crest-Like subgenre, in that you need to find Video Game Tools to unlock parts of the levels you're exploring that are blocked off to you... except it's wholly non-linear (while still lacking the interconnectivity in some areas), some of those tools are for cosmetic purposes, and progress is tied to how much you know about the game just as much as what items you have right now. Certain areas also cross over into Survival Horror thanks to examples like Time's encounter in the Superstructure^note escape Time's area, while paying attention to his noise cues so you can keep your flashlight off while he's around, The Broadcasted Zone^note a maze where there are a bunch of macabre enemies you're meant to sneak past, and most of whom kill you instantly, and Hope's surprise random encounter in The Main Area^note where you can only Run or Die from her. This is all without getting into the unexpected gameplay changes that switch up control schemes and homages other games altogether. Floombo settled on labeling it as an adventure game, and the fan wiki settled on calling it a "Pseudo-Open World 3D-Platformer".
• Grimy Water: The waters in the Golden City's Down the Drain room kills you instantly if you swim in it.
• Ground Punch: Holding down "CTRL" without pressing any other movement keys has Garn47 pound the ground in front of him. It's not only surprisingly useful for rapidly slowing himself to a crawl, but performing it in mid-air speeds up his fall, allowing him to descend quicker, as well as being the safer option to the Dash Attack for destroying stuff in front of him.
• Hollywood Acid: The hazardous waters of the Golden City's sewers are colored green.
• Informed Species: Car is allegedly a Sentient Vehicle, but looks nothing like a car, instead resembling a kitten.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The game starts with Car simply sending you an invitation letter, and that's all you'll be given in terms of direct exposition. While the plot itself is straightforward, story-progressing cutscenes are few and far between, and the overarching story and characters' backstories are something you'll need to actively piece together through a mixture of Story Breadcrumbs, environmental details, and character dialogue.
• Knight of Cerebus: Carr's presence is treated with gravitas instead of the game's signature Surreal Humor, and she's closely involved in some of the game's darker plot points (such as her and Car's experiments with life diamonds bringing about genetic abominations).
• Meaningful Name: Car is an intentional typo of "cat", which he resembles.
• New Weapon Target Range: In the event Drilly doesn't give you a hint about it, Car Mountain definitively both establishes that your Q-Blast will function differently in certain rooms, and in rooms with Car, you can call him over with the Q-Blast. Car Mountain tests you on both of these with a short obstacle course which you have to guide Car through in order to get to the Diamond Teleporter.
• NO INDOOR VOICE: Garn47 himself embodies this in his game, shouting "It's Garnsome!" or an equivalent on the title screen, can occasionally shout Car's name loudly when calling him over, and if he's provoked into doing so, he'll angrily shout at Drilly, the helper character, to shut up if they deliver one too many tips. The only time he isn't yelling is when he's apologizing to Drilly for yelling at them, as well as when he's thanking the player for playing his game during the ending.
• Noob Cave: Car Mountain is a generally risk-free environment, far smaller in size than the overworlds of the game, and a perfect training ground for both your control scheme and the "calling Car" mechanic.
• Obviously Evil: You'd be hard-pressed to consider Garn7 a good guy through his intimidating appearance. Constant angry face? Check! Red and black body? Check! Spikes on head and shoulders? Check! Absurdly Sharp Claws? Check, check, and check!
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Inverted, as the conflict of the game is between the younger Garn47, Car, and Drilly, versus the older Three Means of the Deep and Carr.
• Patrolling Mook: The Gentles are actually a pack of patrolling bosses. As you can surmise, getting caught by these things isn't gonna end well. Also, if a single Yellow Gentle spots you, all other Yellow Gentles aggro onto you.
• Pick-up Hierarchy:
  • Primary: Badges and Collectibles.
  • Secondary: Companions.
  • Tertiary: Glorgles.
  • Extra: Trophies.
• Plot Coupon: The Badges serve as these. They're gained by completing their relevant side-objectives, are essential to the "Formspire Ending" (and by extension, the "Quiz Ending"), and reward you with new boss battles for every five you collect. Though, they can be skipped if you're going for other endings.
• Protagonist Title: Garn47 is the name of both the game, as well as its main playable character.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Garn47's main attack. It's not very effective other than pushing enemies away though.
• Recurring Boss: Downplayed with Garn46 in V2.5. You first fight him as Garn47, wherein you're tasked with ringing him out into spikes to damage him. Then you rematch him as Car, where directly damaging him is impossible, he charges you down frequently, there's an Advancing Wall of Doom keeping you on the move, and he rigged his arena with a variety of traps; here, you're required to ask at most three McLevens for help to damage him, and even then, you'll have to hold out against him.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Car, a sentient, kitten-shaped car.
• Sensory Abuse: If Drilly gives too many hints, Garn47 yells at them so loudly with a Big "SHUT UP!" and Voice of the Legion, his voice audibly clips.
• Sentient Vehicle: Car, even if he looks more like a kitten than anything else.
• Spring Jump: One of Garn47's movement techniques is an extremely high jump, achieved by holding down "CTRL" and pressing "Space".
• Synthetic Voice Actor:
  • Car and his sister's voices are provided by text-to-speech from ttsfree.com.
  • KeepMeSafe continues Car and Carr's theming of being voiced by text-to-speech, but with Software Automattic Mouth instead.
• Theme Twin Naming: Despite being siblings and not twins, the catlike characters are named Car and... Carr.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Carr is the big sister to Car and the journal dropped by PraiseForAll reveals that she used to be more loving and openly affectionate like him, showing her in group shots with their family and smiling openly at her brother. A mix of Parental Abandonment and being stalked by The Where at a young age has hardened her into The Eeyore and one of the main antagonists of the game as a Mad Scientist Maker of Monsters — but there still exists moments where her affectionate side still peaks through.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • The McLevens are liable to get ground punched, dashed into, shot via your Glort Gun, and attacked in other comical ways, free of consequence for the player.
  • You can feed Car to a Meatworm in The Pit submap of the Garmobile. Your punishment is that he's permanently removed from your party, until you go back to Car Mountain and recruit him again, though this also doubles as an (albeit cruel) Anti-Frustration Feature.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Being a Horror Comedy game, a lot of the villains tend to be grotesque and unslightly, but don't break the tone of the game and even have moments of levity or at the very least exist for you to overcome. The Greater-Scope Villain, The Where, is an exception to this rule. She is a Humanoid Abomination who is cloaked in darkness and is traumatizing to both Car (who freezes in place at the sight of her) and Carr — serving as the Freudian Excuse for the latter's fall to darkness. She seems heavily fixated on the resident Cute Kittens, and her dialogue implies she wants to become or assmiliate them.
• "Wanted!" Poster: The Three Means of the Deep are hinted at by the wanted posters of them plastered across the Main Area and Garn47's home.
• Warm-Up Boss: As you're likely to face Garn46 first, he's a straightforward fight; he dashes at the player, and you need to charge him into wall spikes to beat him.