Gish/Controls

Gish is rather tricky to control. Here are the basic controls:

• ← and → - Move Gish left or right.
•  ↑  - Decrease the gravity factor of Gish, allowing him to fall slower or swim upwards. When stuck to the wall, it acts as a movement key instead.
•  ↓  - Increase the gravity factor of Gish, allowing him to fall faster or swim downwards. When stuck to the wall, it acts as a movement key instead.
• Sticky - Allows Gish to stick to surfaces and grab objects.
• Slick - Reduces Gish's friction to zero, allowing to squeeze between tight gaps for an example.
• Heavy - Turns Gish more rigid and greatly increases the gravity factor, allowing to crush things and fall faster.
• Expand - Same as heavy except without the gravity factor increase. Mainly used for jumping. It is also used to prevent fall damage.

Combined abilities

Different abilities can be used any time and for any duration. Multiple abilities (except heavy and expand at the same time) can be used at once. Combining these abilities can be useful for some advanced movement.

• Sticky + Slick - This makes Gish grab onto solid walls without grabbing loose objects.
• Sticky + Heavy - Allows Gish to break and pull down objects from below. Also useful for rotating hinged platforms.
• Sticky + Expand - This is mostly used when flying towards a wall to stick on at high speed.
• Slick + Heavy - This turns Gish into a soap-like substance, allowing him to roll downhill at high speeds. It can also be used to prevent crushing damage.
• Slick + Expand - Same as Slick + Heavy except the gravity factor doesn't increase. Can also be used to prevent crushing damage.

Jumping techniques

Jumping in Gish takes some time to master.

Basic jump

Start by pressing  ↓  and then Expand and Gish makes a tiny hop. The more compressed Gish is, the higher he jumps.  ↑  can be used to help Gish jump much higher and  ↓  can be used to make Gish fall faster, thus making Gish more compressed. Heavy can be used to make Gish fall even faster, but it must be let go before touching the ground.

Corner jump

Corners can be used to help jumping. 135 and 90-degree angles help to make Gish compressed much easier so it takes less effort to jump off of them. Note that if Gish becomes too compressed, he will take damage. 45-degree corners are tricky to used for jumping since the body of Gish can get stuck in these due to glitchy collision detection.

Rolling jump

This jump allows the first jump to be already about 4 tiles high. To perform a rolling jump:

1. Move in one direction.
2. Press Sticky and  ↓  to make Gish compressed.
3. Release Sticky and  ↓  and press Expand when Gish is at its most compressed state.

Rolling jump from standstill

Sometimes there aren't much room to move. To perform a rolling jump from standstill:

1. Start rolling in one direction while holding down Slick. This makes Gish's body roll without hooking the surface, thus making movement very slow.
2. Release Slick and press Sticky and  ↓  like in rolling jump.
3. Release Sticky and press Expand when Gish is at its most compressed state.

Other navigation techniques

Fast movement from standstill

Normally, Gish starts to move slowly while gradually gaining speed. To get a good speed from standstill:

1. Start rolling in one direction while holding down Slick.
2. When the rolling speed is high enough, tap Sticky a few times and release quickly each time.

Climbing walls faster

To climb walls faster, tap Sticky instead of holding it down. This also works when climbing on ceilings, but is more risky and holding  ↑  is recommended.