Goo Deer
Overview
Goo Deer is a store simulator and hunting simulator blended together in a world where everyone is addicted to the energy drink. During the night you sell your products, and during the morning you hunt for the product. You also have to protect the store by scaring the angry customers away (with your fists) and extinguishing fires. It is a difficult game, and once you sell enough to keep the store running by itself, you can go hunt for the big deer in the forest. There is permanent death: If you lose the store of your life, you start from zero. Manage your store balance with your profits carefully.
Gameplay
A game starts by choosing the difficulty, which gives you more or fewer starting bullets and therefore more or fewer profit. From 7 PM to 4 AM, you run the store and check out the customers. At the beginning you pretty much have to do the work yourself: In the basement, process the deer into meat, grind it, distill it, and bottle the goo into six packs. Once shelves are filled, you can price the product and raise or lower them. The empty box must be discarded outside. Along with manning the store, you must clean it and extinguish any fire provoked by angry customers if you don’t manage to have enough to sell.
Once it is dawn, you may have to defend the store from a raid by punching angry customers; otherwise, you are set to hunt in the forest. You have a carabine rifle with up to five bullets. Bonus ammo can be found on the ground by exploring the forest. Past the golden field, a hut store sells ammunition and gear to buy. Deers wander through the trees in the forest, instead of open areas where the player walks. They are very skittish and react to footsteps or gunfire at great ranges. Shooting one down will make them bleed to death. Hunting can be done as long as there are bullets, but beartraps can be placed anywhere. Daylight only lasts ten minutes.
If you wander at night, a deer boss might roam the forest. It is the main reason to return to the store instead of hunting. Permanent death exists; you only have one life before starting from scratch. Once you earn enough profit, you can hire employees to do the job for you automatically while you do other things. Remember to have enough to pay your employees at the start of the night, however, or they will resign. Improving the basement machinery unlocks different ingredients, which can be refined for unique products to sell.
After days pass, the boss will be more aggressive at night. It’s very overpowered, as he can eliminate you in one hit and will take many shots to kill. Incendiary rounds and hunting boots can be purchased to have an edge. But even so, it is not worthy to lose all your progress because he’s faster than you, and there is no incentive other than to complete the game. Inside the office there’s a computer where you can upgrade the store and read e-mails that add little to the story.
Audio & Graphics
Performance isn’t that great in some areas overall, even with every option lowered. Volume is too high, especially gunshots. UI shows everything, but certain messages are overlapped with others. Controls are a bit clunky based on collision with walls.
Pros & Cons
Pros-
Interesting mix of store and hunting simulation.
Cons-
With permanent death, there is no point in beating the game against a difficult boss. Progress is very limited by your current revenue.
Collisions with customers may get you stuck in weird places while time advances.
Hunting is a bit more difficult than it seems.
Rating: 5/10
Caught like a deer between headlights.
