The Plunger Gun in Shady Job

The Plunger Gun is Shady Job’s signature tool. Steam lists three jobs for it in one breath: climb, survive, and control the bag. A fourth job sits in the co-op line: save teammates from deadly falls. Official overlays prompt SHOOT, PULL / RELEASE, and DROP. This page stays inside those words. It does not invent keyboard binds, charge times, or damage. Confirm binds in settings when the game unlocks on September 10, 2026. HUD chrome around the gun is on controls.

If the crew has not split roles yet, read co-op and Getting Started first. The plunger player is the lookout, not a second architect and not a second carrier.

The four prompts

Shoot fires the cup. Legal targets in the pitch and in screenshots are unfinished walls, the black taped cargo, and people who are about to be weather. Shoot is also how you start a climb: cup on concrete, then walk the line instead of hoping a jump exists.

Pull closes distance. You Pull to reel yourself to a wall, to drag Punchy Bag off a drop, or to haul a teammate back over a lip. Pull is not a winch you lean on forever. Long Pulls move more than the target; they move the span, the carrier, and whoever thought they were only watching.

Release is the safety. When the line is eating a scaffold or turning a person into a pendulum, Release. Steam already told you one building mistake can destroy the entire structure. A plunger line can be that mistake. See building.

Drop detaches. Drop when the cup is on a doomed plank, when you need the gun free for a different target, or when the rescue is already on the floor and the line is now a tripwire. Drop is not how you discard Punchy Bag off floor 13.

Say the prompt words in voice. “I am Pulling” is clearer than “I am using it.” The controls page is explicit: this wiki will not print a key table. Steam Input is the controller path if you bring one.

Climb

Unfinished skyscrapers are missing stairs on purpose. Climbing with the plunger is how a lookout scouts a crane, a window break, or a painted floor number without demanding a bridge first.

• Shoot high, Pull in pulses, Release if the cup starts peeling a weak surface.
• Do not climb with the bag on your back as a flex. The carrier walks finished path. You climb to place a cup they can trust.
• Scout ice and electric from above when you can. Press flagged those hazards; an official shot froze a teammate named Valentine. Call them before the builder commits blocks. Route language is in the walkthrough.
• Land on a slab that still exists. A climb onto a moving platform mid-cycle is a circus act. Wait, then Shoot the static wall behind it.

Landmarks in official art — city skyline, extra cranes, giant golden statue — help you call a face of the tower. They are not climb objectives.

Bag control

Punchy Bag, the playtest nickname from GAZE IN GAMES, struggles, escapes, breaks structures, and pushes people off ledges. It gets more aggressive if handled roughly. The plunger is how you pin without slamming.

• Pin, don’t fling. Shoot the bag or the wall behind it. Short Pulls. If the cargo starts flying, you have become the rough handler the store warned about. Read body bag.
• One line on the bag. Two plungers on cargo turn it into a wishbone. The second gun should be on a wall or on a person.
• Hands first after the pin. The carrier re-grips. You Release so you are not fighting their walk.
• Never use the bag as a grappling hook. Attaching cargo to a far ledge and Pulling the whole job across a gap is a highlight and a collapse.

If the bag is calm, put the cup on architecture instead. Idle tugging is rough handling with extra steps.

Teammate rescue

Falls are routine. Steam’s co-op copy tells you to save teammates from deadly falls and escape physics-driven disasters. Procedure:

1. Call Down with a name and a side of the building.
2. Someone else owns the bag. You do not rescue and carry at the same time unless you are solo.
3. Shoot the person or the slab they can still see. Pull until their feet find a lip. Release if you are peeling them through rebar. Drop when they can stand.
4. Do not Pull them through ice or an electric floor just because it is closer. The walkthrough treats those as real hazards, not scenery.
5. After the rescue, you are still the lookout. The rescued player is not automatically the new carrier.

Full party order — pin bag, one plunger, builders wait — is written on co-op. Repeat it until it is boring.

Slot 2: industrial fan, as seen

Official HUD shots show two hotbar slots labeled 1 and 2. Slot 2 in that art holds an INDUSTRIAL FAN. Slot 1 shows a SANDWICH. This page will not invent fan DPS, knockback values, or a sandwich heal number. Effects are still being catalogued pre-launch.

What you can say without fiction: the fan is a held tool in the same chrome as the plunger prompts, so someone on the crew should own slot 2 instead of ignoring it. If the live game gives the fan a prompt, believe that prompt. Until then, do not write a fan-as-weapon guide and do not assume it replaces Shoot / Pull / Release / Drop.

Toilets and barrels in screenshots are physics props for building, not plunger ammo.

Who holds the gun

• Solo: you hold everything. Climb only to fix a path you cannot build from where you stand. Pin the bag before you scout.
• Duo: the non-carrier holds the plunger. The carrier may keep a gun for panic pins, but they do not climb off the bag.
• Three and four: a named plunger lookout. The floater can be the second cup for a double fall. Lock it on the squad planner and roles.

Playtests (Wave 1 on July 24, 2026 through LEVEL 2 on August 14, then wrapped August 31) already taught crews that the gun is the difference between a joke wipe and a recovered loop. Launch-week prompt changes belong in patch notes. Until a patch says otherwise, the overlay is the law: Shoot, Pull, Release, Drop. Other how-tos sit on the Guides Hub. On the site, the gun is how you keep people and Punchy Bag on the same floor.