A Simple Premise: Puzzles in the Deep Fryer
Fit and Fry is about as straightforward of a puzzle game as it gets. In the game, the player is given an assortment of food that must be placed into a fryer, utilising every space without missing a single ingredient.
Each level works as a grid, with the first levels starting as basic shapes like a square or rectangle, progressing up to abnormal shapes with blocks missing. Ingredients come in the shape of straight lines, single block pieces, and even L or U-shaped pieces. These items can be rotated and placed anywhere on the board, and as long as everything fits, it doesn’t matter where they end up.
Hints and Hassles
The option to reset the level is ever-present, and every five seconds it’s possible to prompt the game for a hint. These highlight a specific ingredient along with a corresponding point on the grid to place it. Using a large number of these hints could prove to be useful, but the issue with them is that moving one ingredient may cause it to overlap other ingredients. This means if the grid is almost full, then multiple items may need to be removed to fit the ingredient that is highlighted.
There also isn’t an easy way to remove the items if holding onto an ingredient. The ingredient first needs to be placed to the side, then the ingredients can be removed individually, and then the correct one can be put in place. This makes using hints on any level that they would actually be useful, very tedious.
Short, Sweet, and Repetitive
With that said though, the majority of the puzzles found in Fit and Fry are incredibly straightforward and unless you are someone who greatly struggles with puzzles, or are buying it for a young child, these hints will remain mostly unused.
Most players will beat the game in under an hour, again unless it’s a younger gamer or someone who really struggles with puzzle games. This is a fairly big positive because while it means the game is short and easy, it also means that you aren’t subject to the repetitive background music that plays the entire time. The same track plays on a loop constantly, and it makes the 30-minute experience feel much longer than it actually is.
A Gamerscore Hunter’s Delight
The main reason to recommend Fit and Fry is the fact that it is an achievement hunter’s paradise. In less than an hour you can easily rack up 2000 Gamerscore, which at this point I feel like has to be an intentional choice by those at Afil Games. Sure it’s an affordable game, but it plays with less depth than most free mobile games, and the main reason to recommend it is that it gives more Gamerscore than a full-priced AAA title. It feels like a way to get players to justify the purchase, when there are so many games that are accessible for free on your phone that are more fun to play.
There aren’t any bugs and the game is fully functional, but that is the baseline that should be expected from almost any game, especially one as mechanically simple as this one. Sure a massive open worlder is going to have bugs, but there are a lot more systems in place, so gamers as a collective have come to accept some degree of jank to these games. If a game like Fit and Fry had any jank, there is a lot less room for forgiveness because there is only one system at play.
A Culinary Assault: The Illogical Theme
The theme of the game is frying numerous foods to create a dish, but this is simply to allow for some kind of aesthetic. In no sane world would any of these foods be put into a deep fryer together. Throwing three cloves of garlic and a cucumber into a deep fryer would be an assault on the culinary world that would not go unpunished in the real world. Let alone adding two whole onions, shrimp, cucumber, and who knows what else.
Plus, cucumbers are predominately water and adding that to a deep fryer would most likely result in severe burns to anyone manning the station…
If some effort had gone into theming the foods in a way that made them more logical, or even showed specific dishes that actually exist, then there would at least be a culinary educational aspect lent to the gameplay. Unfortunately the food is completely randomised and there is no rhyme or reason to anything that is going on.
A Shallow Puzzle Game with a Big Gamerscore Payoff
The result is a mechanically shallow game that has an incredibly short run time with the main redeeming qualities being the lack of bugs and the fact it’s got a huge 2000 Gamerscore behind it. Again, adding that Gamerscore does feel like a cheat to help with justifying the price, but it is always nice to get a large boost, even if us gamers can’t articulate why.
If you’re looking to kill an hour, get 2000 Gamerscore in your bag, and have five dollars burning a hole in your pocket, then Fit and Fry is an option.
Important Links
Fit Everything In! Cooking Puzzler Fit and Fry Sizzles onto Xbox & PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/fit-everything-in-cooking-puzzler-fit-and-fry-sizzles-onto-xbox-pc/
Buy Fit and Fry, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fit-and-fry/9PNC17QWTF67/0010
Enjoy an Xbox One edition – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fit-and-fry-xbox-one/9NNRQR3BCSPL/0010
Or a Bundle – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fit-and-fry-xbox-bundle/9N2CSDLP6NL3/0010
