Gun-Nac

About Gun-Nac

Gun-Nac (1990) is Compile's NES shooter in which Commander Gun-Nac battles household objects brought to life by cosmic radiation in an upmarket artificial planetary system.

Gun-Nac in Depth

In the distant future, Earth's resources are exhausted and many people move to IOTA Synthetica, a hip, upmarket artificial planetary system built by the Galactic Federation. A mysterious wave of cosmic radiation sweeps through it, bringing ordinary inanimate objects to life to attack the residents, and the Federation calls on Commander Gun-Nac, son of the legendary Xan, to save it. In the Japanese original, Xan is a shrine maiden who summoned the Gun-Nac ship and became its pilot.

Across eight levels, the ship can grow larger by collecting a "wing", letting it take two hits instead of one and upgrade its weapons further. Five primary weapons, including a standard gun, a flamethrower and a guided boomerang, have unlimited ammunition and are picked up as numbered circles, then strengthened with floating "Power P" items. Four kinds of secondary bomb come as lettered circles and are limited to however many are collected. Collecting the same circle several times in a row upgrades a weapon or bomb, up to five levels, and an upgraded bomb is twice as powerful but uses twice the ammunition. Money found floating or dropped by enemies buys upgrades in a shop between levels.

Making Gun-Nac

Compile developed it for the NES, and Tonkin House released it in Japan on 5 October 1990, with ASCII Corporation publishing it in North America in September 1991. Several elements were removed or changed for the American release, including the intro, the ending and the first phase of the final boss.