Zella’s Gun

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game was one of the winners of the October 2026 All-Patron Budget Vote! Become a donor on Patreon to join in on future polls like this one to decide games to review!)

Zella’s Gun is a Visual Novel released on Nintendo Switch in 2026. This game focuses on a conversation between the titular Zella, a young woman struggling with self-esteem issues and social anxiety, and her ghostly-possessed gun Toast, who is arguing with Zella over the woman’s decision to go out unarmed with a group of new friends. I should note that players should be warned of potentially triggering content pertaining to violence, suicide, depression, and toxic relationship dynamics. Also, I would be remiss not to point out that this game is only about 15 minutes long, but it’s also only $1, so I suppose that balances out.

The presentation here is fairly simple, making use of 2D pixel art images of the two characters rendered in sepia tones, with no music and no sound beyond the electronic droning noises as text plays out. It would be pretty lackluster if it wasn’t for the fact that Zella’s character design is nice, in a simple sort of way.

As a Visual Novel, this game provides no player choices or interactivity beyond progressing the text. It’s just a straightforward story, and it’s just a conversation between the two characters in one place. Zella is trying to push herself to go out to make friends, while Toast is criticizing her, trying to convince her that trying to make friends is pointless and foolish, or that she should bring the gun with her to protect herself from what it claims are threats.

I think one of the things this game does best is how it presents a malicious and manipulative confidant. Toast is clearly seeking to undermine Zella and make her doubt herself, prey on her fears and insecurities, and drag down any remnants of self-confidence she has while positioning itself as her lone friend and defender. It’s a really solid depiction of a really despicable type of person (er… ghost gun, I guess?), or possibly even a depiction of our own inner critic given form in an object that represents violence and death.

Meanwhile, Zella on some level sees Toast’s manipulation and toxic nature for what it is, yet can’t help but listen to it despite herself. She struggles between doing what she wants and leaving to have a healthy evening for herself, while also feeling a need to respond to Toast’s needling comments.

Through much of the story, I was thoroughly enjoying the interaction between the two. However, I think Zella’s Gun has three major problems.

First, the text of the conversation is peppered with occasionally odd word use that can make it unclear what exactly was meant. What’s more, even though this is presumably a verbal conversation (or an internal one, perhaps), the two characters use text/internet terms like “wtf”, which makes me wonder if this conversation was written in a text messaging app or something. It’s jarring, and takes me out of the story when I see it.

The second major problem is that this story really feels like it needed more time to breathe. 15 Minutes just does not seem enough to fully develop the toxic dynamic between these two characters, especially since manipulators work over long periods of time, not one brief conversation. We hear about events that happened before, and it would have been interesting to see those events actually play out instead of hearing about them after the fact.

The third problem with Zella’s Gun is the ending, which flips on a dime and is almost comedic in how it suddenly feels like Michael Scott at the improv class. Yes, Checkov’s Gun is generally a solid storytelling rule, but that doesn’t mean it’s sensible for a serious story to suddenly have a Frank Reynolds moment. That’s not to say this story’s ending couldn’t have worked, but it needed to do more to lay the groundwork for that ending, especially when the story thus far could be seen as an apt metaphor for a few different serious issues, but then it quickly decides, “no, metaphors are dumb, this really is just a story about a woman and her ghost gun”.

Because of this, I it’s hard for me to wholeheartedly recommend Zella’s Gun. On the one hand, it’s inexpensive, and while it’s good it’s very good. But then it has to go and ruin that with its rushed storytelling and tone-shifting ending. I suppose it’ll only cost you a buck and the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, and during that time the characters are interesting enough to be engaging. But it definitely feels like this could have been something more.

tl;dr – Zella’s Gun is a Visual Novel about a woman, the titular Zella, having a conversation with her ghostly-possessed gun, Toast. There are no story choices here, and you’ll finish the game in 15 minutes, but at $1 that’s somewhat forgivable. And the characters here are interesting and have a compelling toxic dynamic. That said, the story feels rushed and the ending has a really odd shift in tone that’s not properly built to. As a result, while there’s some worthwhile story here, it definitely feels like it could have been much better.

Grade: C+

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