You ever want to roar across the dystopian wasteland of the future's wastelands and cities on your incredibly slick-looking cyberpunk motorcycle? Yeah, me neither, but I'd love to do that in a videogame, and that's what we're here for.
Gripper is an upcoming action indie all about taking down tough bosses, ripping out their hearts, and using those to customize your absolutely enviable ride. Yeah, it's a boss rush game, one of those where the whole point of the thing is throwing yourself up against tough bosses and figuring out how to tear them to pieces.
Unlike other boss rushes, however, Gripper seems to be focused on customizability and playstyle. The core of the game is grabbing and tearing with your bike's grappling hook—gripping and ripping, if you will—but it'll also let you customize your bike. You'll be able to add cosmetics or tweak your health, but also add gear "from energy boosters to spawnable drones, mines and gadgets."
That's not to say it's all style and action with no substance, as Gripper promises to at least have a bit of a plot. Protagonist "None" will be racing across the wastes to "Rescue your family and uncover the secrets of the collapsing world." The developers say that the story is about "mystery and loss" and will involve you helping None make "vital choices."
Part of Gripper's draw is certainly how stylish it is, with its neon highlights and moody tones interspersed with bright flashes of color. It's certainly one of those games that looks wildly better in motion than it does in screenshots. It also looks to have nicely-done animatic cutscenes for key parts of the game story, so those should be a treat too.
You can find Gripper on Heart Core's website gripper-game.com, and on Steam. It'll release "Q1 2023," so by the end of March. Heart Core is a new indie developer headquartered in Byala, Bulgaria, but spread across the globe. It's made of up veterans from professional game development and the film industry. Gripper will be its first game.
