I Am Bread is the next game from Bossa Studios whose previous game Surgeon Simulator combined the high stakes of performing surgery, with the spastic controls of a virtual hand with hilarious results. This time we’re leaving the OR and moving to the bakery with one of the weirdest games since Goat Simulator.
Rising Up:
The story of I am Bread is that you are literally a piece of bread whose only goal in life is to become toast by whatever means necessary. The object of each level is to maneuver around the environment avoiding anything disgusting or the floor to keep your edibility up while finding a heat source capable of toasting yourself.
Similar to Surgeon Simulator, I am Bread features an intentionally crumbersome control scheme where you’ll move your bread by gripping one or more of the four corners via key commands or a gamepad. Everything reacts with a physics system allowing you to send your bread flying and make a mess of everything not nailed down.
High scores are about maintaining edibility and deliciousness and require mastery of the game’s controls
Getting use to moving is the first challenge of the game as you only have a limited grip amount before you’ll be forced to let go.
Each level plays out almost like an action puzzle where your two main goals are finding a way to get toasted and then finding the safest path to said way. Besides the story mode, there are also sandbox, rampage and other modes and types of bread to unlock on your quest for rebreadion
I am Bread is one of those games that it’s hard not to smile as your slice of bread careens through the air or carefully climbs a box of junk, but is there more than yeast the eyes?
Moldy:
I Am Bread is a game that everything about it was explicitly designed that way — From the environment and challenges to the control scheme that Bossa wanted. And similar to my review of 1001 Spikes, that leaves me in a weird position. Do I mark the game down for its esoteric control scheme and basic gameplay even though this was exactly how the developers wanted I am Bread to turn out?
The physics system and control scheme often clash, making it sometimes difficult to get to where you need to go
To decide that, I returned to my 1001 Spikes review which was a similarly polarizing game due to how it was defined by the developers and from there I reached a decision.
Even though I Am Bread was explicitly designed to have unusual gameplay and a control scheme to match, that doesn’t give a game an automatic pass.
Trying to use physics to help you move around proved to be very hit or miss with sometimes things working and other times I would get flung to the floor and my imminent death.
There were also camera and physics related weirdness along with bugs such as my bread spazzing out of control and literally collapsing in on itself as some kind of bread based black hole. Past the second level of the game, I got frustrated with the constant deaths due to physics based mishaps and controls that I just kept using the game’s version of having infinite health to see the rest of the levels. But worse is that even with having infinite health, I just got tired of the amount of work needed to move the bread without any real reward to it.
This is the risk you take whenever you create a game around unconventional control schemes. If the controls take too much work to use, you may drive people away who don’t want to put in the added effort without any additional benefits.
Given the open nature of each room, I think it would have been better to have collectibles or some kind of other side objectives to find to flesh out the environments. The extra modes and types of bread are a good start, but having additional goals would give people a reason to keep playing beyond just getting a higher score.
Buttered Toast:
I Am Bread is going to be a love it or hate it type game similar to Surgeon Simulator. If you’re looking for a freshly baked experience, I Am Bread fits the bill. However just like regular bread, things may become moldy for you very quickly.
