---
title: Gurk
category: game
official: true
slug: gurk
developer: Larva Labs (Matt Hall & John Watkinson)
released: 2004 (J2ME) · December 30th, 2010 (Android)
devsite: https://www.larvalabs.com/
play: removed
appstore: removed
fandom: https://gurk.fandom.com/wiki/Gurk_Original
reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gurk/
---

**Gurk** is a retro-styled role-playing game by Larva Labs, the two-person
Brooklyn studio of Matt Hall and John Watkinson. It was first released around
2004 as a J2ME game for Nokia feature phones, running on a 128×128 screen, and
was ported to Android in December 2010 and later to iOS.

The Android release was free and famously tiny: just over 100KB installed. It
went on to pass half a million downloads, and its popularity is what gave the
[gurklike](/what-is-a-gurklike) micro-genre its name.

## Features

The original J2ME release advertised:

- **45,000 map locations** across vast wildernesses and dungeons
- **3 player classes** and a three-character party
- **24 dungeon levels**
- **44 different items** to find and **23 unique monsters** to fight
- Melee, ranged and magic weapons; attack and healing spells; 3 types of armour
- Experience points, levels, stat improvement, and shops to buy and sell gear
- An estimated **12–20 hours** of play on a single download

Play is entirely one-handed. The world is a tile grid walked one square at a
time, and combat happens on that same grid: the player picks a target, moves,
attacks or casts, and then the monsters take their turn. On Android the
interface is a 3×3 block of on-screen buttons beneath a small viewport,
mimicking a feature phone's number pad.

## Story

You take control of a party of three heroes and set out to defeat the evil
dragon Braka, hidden in one of the world's many dungeons. There is very little
narrative framing beyond that; [Gurk II](/gurk-ii) added quests and NPCs.

## Availability

Gurk has been delisted from both stores. The Android version was unpublished
from Google Play on August 13th, 2021, and the iOS version is gone too. Only
[Gurk III](/gurk-iii) is still on the App Store. Larva Labs later
created CryptoPunks, and pixel art from Gurk fed directly into that project.

## Inspirations

- [Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_IV:_Quest_of_the_Avatar)
- [The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_II:_The_Destiny_Knight)

## Related Games

- [Gurk II](/gurk-ii)
- [Gurk III](/gurk-iii)

## External articles

- [Larva Labs sneaks an 8-bit old school RPG onto the Android Market, awesomeness ensues](https://www.droidgamers.com/tag/gurk/) — Droid Gamers, December 30th, 2010
- [Android App Review: Gurk, the 8-bit RPG](https://futurefive.co.nz/story/android-app-review-gurk-the-8-bit-rpg) — FutureFive NZ
- [Larva Labs Interview](https://myboxeduniverse.wordpress.com/interviews/larva-labs-interview/) — My Boxed Universe
- [The B.C. (Before CryptoPunks) Era of Larva Labs](https://medium.com/@Posvar/the-eburp-collection-bridging-larvalabs-pixel-past-to-blockchain-present-d9e20f00bd01) — Medium
- [Gurk Original](https://gurk.fandom.com/wiki/Gurk_Original) — Gurk, the 8-bit RPG Wiki

## Screenshots

![Turn-based grid combat against skeletons and orcs in a dungeon](/screenshots/gurk/1.jpg)
![Exploring a walled town on the overworld](/screenshots/gurk/2.jpg)
![Sir Rugnar's equipment screen](/screenshots/gurk/3.jpg)
![Coastline and mountains on the overworld map](/screenshots/gurk/4.jpg)