Suicide Guy VR (The Guy) is bizarre, bold, and occasionally brilliant—but its clunky controls and janky VR systems hold it back
There's something oddly charming about The Guy. He's a big, dopey-looking dude who falls asleep with a burger in hand and soda on his belly. What follows is a bizarre descent into a series of dream levels where the sole objective is to find creative and often ridiculous ways to… well, unalive yourself. On paper, this sounds like a dark comedy physics puzzler that should be perfect for VR. But while the core idea has its moments, the execution on Meta Quest leaves a lot to be desired.
The story is minimal, but in this case, that's not a bad thing. The Guy dozes off on the couch, and in his dreams, he has to wake himself up by dying in increasingly absurd scenarios. It's not as grim as it sounds. The tone is cartoonish and goofy, more Wile E. Coyote than Inside. Each level is essentially a standalone vignette, a self-contained puzzle with one ultimate goal: end the level by offing yourself in some bizarre way.
What keeps things interesting is the sheer variety in settings. One moment you're on a train track in a dusty desert, trying to lure a speeding locomotive into your path. The next, you're solving environmental puzzles inside a temple full of spike traps, channeling your inner Indiana Jones. Another level might throw you into a sci-fi scenario where you're piloting a spaceship straight into the sun. It's clear that the developers had a lot of fun dreaming these up—and when it works, the game delivers moments of absurd, laugh-out-loud satisfaction.
But the key phrase here is when it works.
The core gameplay loop is straightforward: figure out what items or environmental cues will help you end the level. There's usually only one path to success per level, so it becomes a bit of a trial-and-error process until you understand what the level wants from you. Thankfully, the puzzles are often intuitive and pretty clever. You might need to use a soda machine to weigh down a pressure plate, line up a crane perfectly to drop a crate on your head, or build a stack of objects just right to trigger a trap.
This sandbox-y setup encourages a bit of experimentation, and there's a surprising amount of interaction with objects in the world. The environments are interactive, and the puzzle variety helps keep the game from becoming repetitive, at least for the first hour or so.
Unfortunately, the mechanics don't hold up their end of the bargain. Movement is floaty, and there's a clumsiness to your every action. Jumping is especially awkward. Instead of a smooth, responsive leap, it feels like you're flinging your marshmallowy body into the air, hoping it sticks. If you want to climb onto something, the game expects you to slap at the ledge and pray the system lets you mantle over. It's not fluid, it's frustrating.
Grabbing objects, especially larger ones like crates or platforms, is even worse. Instead of pulling or pushing things naturally with your hands (you know, like every other VR game since Job Simulator), you hold the grab button and then physically walk backward or forward with your entire character. This breaks the immersion completely. It's not fun, it's not intuitive, and it turns basic puzzle-solving into a chore.
Graphically, The Guy is very basic, even on the more powerful Quest 3. Environments are colorful and cartoonish, and character models lean heavily into low-poly charm. It won't blow your mind, but it's consistent with the game's overall tone: goofy, surreal, and not meant to be taken too seriously.
There are occasional lighting effects or level-specific flourishes that look decent in the headset—like the glow of lava or the shimmer of a sci-fi corridor, but don't expect high-fidelity visuals. This is very much an indie game built with modest resources.
The audio follows suit. The soundtrack is a mix of quirky tunes that fit the levels well, though they're not particularly memorable. Sound effects are serviceable: explosions go boom, crates go thunk, and The Guy lets out a variety of dumb grunts and gasps that add a bit of humor to the mix.
Still, there's a certain charm to how unpolished it all feels. It reminds me of early VR experiments—janky but made with love.
There are a good number of levels in The Guy, each taking around 3–5 minutes to complete once you understand what to do. The whole game can be finished in under 3 hours, and unless you want to go back and collect hidden statues or mess around with alternative solutions, there's not much reason to replay it.
Some levels are more memorable than others, usually the ones with elaborate setups or unexpected deaths, but once you've seen the gag, you've seen it. There's no real story progression or new mechanics introduced in later levels to spice things up. It's more of a one-joke game stretched across a few dozen stages.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. If you go in expecting a short, goofy romp through absurd puzzles and physical comedy, it delivers… to a point. But the shallow depth and repetitive structure make it hard to recommend as anything more than a quick novelty.
The Guy on Quest 3 has a great hook. Waking yourself up by dreaming up increasingly ridiculous deaths is a bold and morbidly funny idea. The level variety is solid, and there are definitely moments of joy when everything clicks and a Rube Goldberg-style solution ends with your glorious demise.
But the game is constantly tripping over its own mechanics. The floaty movement, the frustrating object handling, and the awkward interaction system all conspire to make a potentially hilarious experience feel rough around the edges. It's the kind of game where you can see the fun, but you often don't feel it.
If this were polished further, with tighter VR mechanics and more responsive controls, The Guy could have been a chaotic cult classic on Quest 3. As it stands, it's a weird little experiment that's fun in short bursts, but hard to recommend at full price. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a promo copy provided by the developer. The Guy is available on Meta Quest, PSVR, and PCVR.
