It takes a lot to stand out from the ground these days. So, when we heard about a cyberpunk themed, automation game about making noodles it was intriguing enough to to take a look. The Switch has very few of these games so anything that isn’t another Metroidvania or retro themed platformer is welcome.
The plot, like many games with he ‘Cyber Punk’ tag sees you playing
a character with no memory, thrust into a world run by shady corporations in a
dark and satirical future. We reviewed the excellent Citizen Sleeper 2 and this,
weirdly, had much the same premise. The big difference here though is you work
for an automated food production company were your task is to set up a
production line to create whichever food is required to progress.
The game unfolds with your character going through training
and then gradually being allowed to make more and more complex dishes. As the
dishes get more complex you get higher security clearance which drives the plot
behind the scenes as you learn more about who you are and what has happened to
you. Taking on a recipe sees you move into a small, top down, grid. Here you place
everything you need to get an automation process going.
Recipes start out simple, with something needing to be
cooked then cut. This is done by having a robot, drone or other helper take the
food, process it in whichever way is required at the cutting or boiling station
and then moving on to the next required element. Soon you’ll have conveyor belts
and plating stations, sauces and frying stations all added into the mix. You’ll
need to combine items as well, such as coating chopped chicken in lemon before moving
it on to be fried or instance.
The difficult does ramp up pretty quickly from the tutorial
but you’ll soon find that things that seemed overwhelming will become a logical
sequence in your brain as you gradually move through the recipe. The controls
also took a fair while to get used to but once we had it worked out we didn’t have
any issues. It will undoubtably be a bit simpler with a PC mouse interface
though.
Once everything clicked, we found the Neon Noodles to be a
creative and addictive puzzle game. It certainly took some patience to get into,
but everything works in a logical way and the controls work well, even if it’s
easy to still press the wrong button from time to time. There are also lots of things
to help the player such as an undo button and being able to move to specific
points of a robot’s movement commands to make changes. This means no set up is
ever a complete disaster, which is a good thing as you’ll need a lot of tweaks
to get everything running smoothly.
Overall, Neon Noodles is an inventive and original game that
gets better the more time you invest in it. The recipes get incredibly complex
as you progress and it will really stretch players. Once finished you can go
back and try and beat your previous scores as well and compare them against
other players globally. This proved to be a real surprise and is well worth
checking out for those looking for a puzzle game with a difference.
Overall 8/10
