A Culinary Conundrum of Conveyors and Chaos
Shelter is a luxury. Food is scarce. All that stands between yourself and surviving is the vicious, predatory societal system that has beaten its way to the forefront of government and life itself. Days are filled with eating paste, drinking whatever water you can find, and any monotonous task to occupy your mind. Yet through this darkness, there is a beacon of hope that shines through, a company that offers sacred meals and treats, if you can afford the price of course.
That being none other than… Neon Noodles.
This is the engrossing narrative lumped into a cooking simulator puzzle game sharing the same name as the aforementioned company, Neon Noodles. Food is a symbol of wealth and power, personified by this conglomerate of intense flavour, yet rapid delivery.
Your role in all this? Well that’s what you must remember. Plagued by mysterious memory loss, and a much more so mysterious message, you’re thrust into a daring mission to reclaim your legacy and leave your mark on the world of luxury cooking. Now how exactly do you achieve all this?
Robot Choreography
Neon Noodles’ main gameplay loop revolves around the open-ended, culinary themed puzzles, be it with conveyor belts and cutting knives, or your personal robots you can command in patterns. You will be tasked with objectives to create specific contraptions, sliced fruit and everything in between, with the title favouring outside of the box thinking and creativity for faster methods. You can save builds you make for other objectives, attempting for the lowest amount of loops (the number of times your build must be used) achieved.
As previously mentioned, you are aided with four main assets to create these: fruit machine, conveyor belts, slicing machine, and robots. The fruit machine does what it says on the tin… swiftly spawning fruit in. Conveyor belts will then move these forward in a direction you choose, either to a slicing machine or the objective. Whilst it sounds simple – and indeed it is – there is something oddly addicting, perhaps therapeutic with this loop.
To throw a spanner in the works however, Neon Noodles introduces robots. Gone are the linear lines your contraptions are built in, steadily going from point A to point B, now artificially replaced with nuts and bolts. These robots will follow your every order, able to be programmed in a series of movements which completely negate the need for conveyor belts.
Unleashing Creativity
The sheer amount of freedom, creativity and control given to the player to utilise their method of thinking in coming up with answers to the problems is reminiscent of the level Tears of the Kingdom gives in builds, albeit on a much smaller scale. I found myself thinking up various solutions to objectives, and many times refining previously built systems.
A clear example to show this is during the sliced pineapple stage, harbouring an achievement for a completion in 13 loops. My previous design had been extremely flawed, clocking in at a whopping 42 loops, yet with some time and an analysis of the game’s mechanics, I managed to grab myself this achievement through a complex, yet fully operational contraption. Thing is, I’m sure this is only one of many ways to obtain the achievement, truly pandering to everyone’s play style and strengths in puzzles.
The Challenge of Programming
Despite the simplicity and room for freedom, not every stage and aspect of Neon Noodles will be simple for everyone. There is an Achilles heel in puzzles for every brain, and for me it was the robots. Programming them could be a nightmarish task, commanding planning, preparation and retrospect to correct the flaws in your design. Simple things such as one extra input in one direction could ruin a loop and often involved moving your assets, or recording a longer loop to solve the issue. The heightened difficulty (due to either my lack of intelligence or complex programming routines) introduced a layer of replay value, along with curiosity halting the game from a stale nature.
Despite no major or even minor issues arising with Neon Noodles, and perhaps in large part attributed to the over abundance of puzzle games in a genre that can only be innovated in so many ways, I never found myself in awe of Neon Noodles, or thinking it was anything beyond a short lived, enjoyable journey. The game never truly reaches a quality above good, yet nevertheless never dips below this quality either.
To play devil’s advocate, these aspects are not the aim of Neon Noodles, in fact it’s rare many of the great puzzles games such as Bejeweled do impact the very foundation of design in the genre, yet still I couldn’t connect with Neon Noodles beyond a brief couple hours of fun.
A Flavourful Puzzle Experience with Satisfying Loops
All in all, if you’re looking for a decade defining masterpiece that will change your perspective on life, Neon Noodles is not that game. But that’s okay. That’s not the intention of the game, and certainly shouldn’t be the overarching purpose of any puzzle game.
On the other hand, if you’re searching for what is an entertaining, immersive and overall good mind-boggler, Neon Noodles is certainly that game, and worthy of your time, providing refreshing endless possibilities, in spite of its few minor issues.
Important Links
Food is POWER! Neon Noodles Serves Up a Challenge on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch – https://www.thexboxhub.com/food-is-power-neon-noodles-serves-up-a-challenge-on-xbox-playstation-switch/
Buy Neon Noodles on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/neon-noodles/9NGX687FMCCF/0010
