We are now living in a world where I simply cannot gauge the proper level of disbelief or cynicism anymore. It was not long ago that an arguably sub-par simulation game garnered the lowest score I had given for that year because of the tonality and subtext around the toxic work culture therein. Even today, I still keep an eye out for when a game is traveling too far outside of good taste in the name of a message, which is why doggy heaven is doggie hell. But now I sit here with Sniper Dan, a cartoony, silly game about shooting everything and solving every problem with a scoped rifle, literally having every answer in the barrel of a gun. A bloodless, ridiculous attempt to take an outlandish concept and elevate it to something that would give the NRA an ego big enough to revive Charlton Heston. And… it’s okay.

But like…should zebras be in the trees? At all? Genuine question, because this is nuts.

I’m not exaggerating with my early description. You are the titular Sniper Dan, who drives around in his van and goes to different areas, doing a bizarre variant of Where’s Waldo but with bullets. Each and every stage has a checklist of sorts for what you need to solve/find. For example, you’ll get a general hint like “fix the fountain” or “my boat won’t go” and you need to hunt around in a first person mode to pinpoint where the aforementioned problem exists. Your scope has an incredible degree of zoom, and you can easily swap from 1x to 8x rather quickly, letting you sweep the zone for where the issue lies and then fix it. And by fix it, I mean shoot it. Once you’ve cleared the main list, you can depart and go hunting for the next place that needs help. Simple, helpful sniper work.

The world of Sniper Dan is very colorful and silly, with this upbeat attempt to make people, places and things that feel like rounded Legos from top to bottom (so, Duplos?). Everything is bright and cheery, with plenty of different little animals, buildings and objects strewn throughout. There’s a blatant degree in which the atmosphere is meant to feel over-the-top in a fun way. So, for example, when you’re hunting around, you’ll eventually discover a blue skinned zombie hiding in almost every stage, but it never menaces or attacks. You can even shoot its hat off, if you’d like. You can constantly knock things out of people’s hands without anyone becoming scared or upset, so silliness is key to making you feel like there’s no real danger in the game. Again, you are a sniper, sniping things, all the time.

This new, twist ending to Titanic is sure to ruin the movie for literally everyone.

Sniper Dan really hits this zone of uncomfortable but enjoyable that’s hard to describe. On the one hand, there’s a real, genuine attempt to make this game as non-violent as possible. Shooting anything that’s living is an immediate penalty and also removes that thing from the level entirely. There’s obviously an active attempt to discourage this sort of violent behavior, and I guess it makes sense to remove the beings instead of simply acting like bullets don’t affect them. Perhaps seeking to avoid the Tom and Jerry allegations of yesteryear, Sniper Dan shows consequences for shooting people and animals, but at a substantially lower degree than would actually happen. If I shot a giraffe in the face in broad daylight, I don’t think I’d simply pay ten dollars and then feel a minor sense of embarrassment.

So I can appreciate this misguided attempt to defang an aspect of a game that obviously exists, but can only be treated in such a way. In fact, it almost feels like it’s a trifle unfair in regards to some missions. For example, an early stage asks you to shorten someone’s pegleg, clearly using your gun because you literally can’t do anything else. If you’re not careful, though, you discover a pirate captain, with a peg leg, that is NOT the person you’re supposed to shoot, and you’ll suffer a penalty for clipping him. It’s a totally different dude with a peg leg, and you have to get it just right to nick the very tip of his peg leg to clear the mission. This degree of unfairness can be frustrating and, well, encourage you to go on a shooting rampage. Wrong message?

All the other kids with the pumped-up kicks are clearly having a great time.

Sniper Dan lets you upgrade as the game goes on, adding things to your sniper office (which I guess is where snipers go to fill out paperwork?) and upgrading your gun. The upgrades are great, with faster reload times, larger magazines and, eventually, even stronger zoom, but they are costly. You’ll find that grinding hidden coins from the levels aren’t worth it: you’ll need to put in the effort and time and clear all the missions, and then go back and do the additional missions, like finding all the fireworks or banana peels. You can also go for a faster time to get a higher rank and achieve more reputation, letting you unlock more and more stages and get more coins. It feeds into itself nicely, building and expanding at a decent rate to keep people engaged as long as you enjoy the gameplay itself.

Aside from the overall feeling you get when playing it, Sniper Dan can be rather enjoyable if you put a lot of time into HOGs, relieving your ISPY days through the crosshairs of a scope. There are plenty of easter eggs of people and things engaging with each other, so there’s a lot of fun to be had from exploration and just seeing what happens. Maps will occasionally give you special “timed” missions, where you need to act fast and fix things in mere seconds. I didn’t love this aspect, because, oftentimes, you don’t have enough of a buffer to figure out where the event is occurring and what you need to do in order to be successful. Repeating maps gives you more of an advantage, so replay is not only possible, but encouraged.

She was so surprised at being locked in the lobster cage she lost her cleavage.

The main issue is just where Sniper Dan fits in in the landscape of gaming. As an adult who has played a fair share of FPS titles and also knows not to shoot people in real life, this is a casual game that rides the line of being farcical. There’s nothing that comes up within the game that gives a political slant or suggestion of some left or right leaning message, just you, being a cheerful shooter, climbing up to take aim and fix the town’s problems with bullets and accuracy. It’s cute, and silly, but it’s not silly enough to totally excuse what’s happening. The LEGO games have mastered taking serious movie and comic moments and transmuting them into the absurd storytelling that makes them enjoyable for all ages. LEGO Star Wars is a masterclass in handling these things.

Sniper Dan, though, never has a wink or a nod. It’s almost like the game believes its own hype, and cheerfully tells everyone “guns help people!” without ever touching on having Sniper Dan take out a bad guy. It transforms a gun into a tool that can be a part of fixing nearly any problem. On the one hand, I enjoy having a shooting game be so far removed and disconnected from actual shooting messages or problems. On the other hand, have you seen the news in the last 20 years? I know, it’s a very ethnocentric thing to look at the U.S. running tally of whoopsie shootings and compare that to the rest of the world, but it’s still there in the back of my mind. What if a parent gives this to a child without context? Does that make it better or worse? My head hurts.

C’mon, how can you be sad when a sniper looks THAT happy after a long day?

So, instead, from the perspective of an adult who knows what a gun is, does not own one and probably never will, I give Sniper Dan a tentative thumbs up. It’s weird, it’s different, but it’s surprisingly well executed and has an upbeat cheer that straddles the line of plasticine without ever going too saccharine. It works, and I think it would work even better on PC, but still works great on Switch 2. I actually really liked hunting around to fix problems with bullets and patience, and I would definitely play some DLC if it ever came out. But man, I really gotta meditate on my position in the world after this one. Sniper Dan. Huh.

Sniper Dan is available now on Steam, itch.io, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Sniper Dan was provided by the publisher.