I Am Bread

Developer: Bossa Studios | Publisher: Bossa Studios | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Action / Adventure / Indie / Simulation | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

With their 2013 medical malpractice “surgeon” simulator, Bossa Studios proved that they can make games that are just as much fun to watch as they are to play. The clumsy controls caused equal amounts of frustration and unintentional hilarity, but overall the game was hugely enjoyable. It was a tough act to follow, but I Am Bread clearly shows that the studio still had some fresh ideas up their sleeve. An Early Access version of the game was released late last year and after extensive tweaking is now available in full form.

I Am Bread has a couple of different modes, but surprisingly enough features a story. You play the role of a slice of bread that aspires to nothing more in life than getting toasted. Ordinarily this would involve patiently waiting until someone pops you in a toaster, but luckily you are no ordinary bread. Instead of loafing around you can take matters into your own hands and traverse the different environments in order to get toasted. The mayhem takes place in the house of one Mr. Murton, who understandly enough has trouble dealing with the destruction of his dwelling at the hands of a sentient piece of toast. The story is told via text excerpts from Mr. Murton’s psychiatrist which details how the unfortunate man slowly starts to suspect that the bread in his house is up to no good. The story also has a hilarious epilogue level which is newly added to the full version of the game.

Thanks to the tricky controls getting your slice of bread toasted is not as easy as you might think. Each level isn’t very big, but neither is a slice of bread which means everything looks gigantic to you. Nobody wants to eat filthy food either, so in your quest to get toasted you must also avoid dirty surfaces at all cost. An “edibility” meter will start to decrease if you get into contact with any grime and if it runs out you have failed. Hilariously enough, provided you have at least 1% edibility left you can still end up toasted despite being covered in bits of broken glass, insects and dirty Band-Aids.

Although playable with a keyboard, the game just felt more intuitive to us using a controller. Each of the shoulder buttons are mapped to a corner of the bread and when held down causes that corner to grip the nearest surface. You can then swing and flop your slice of bread around in order to make headway towards your goals. It takes a lot of practice and never quite feels natural, but that is part of the appeal that the game has.

Even the simplest tasks can feel insurmountable and scaling a large shelf is almost like climbing Everest. To make matters even harder your bread slice has a “grip” meter which decreases while you are hanging from surfaces. If it runs out you slip, which usually means a one way trip to the dirty floor. Don’t despair though as Bossa Studios kindly included a magical jar of marmalade that appears after you have failed three times. The marmalade provides you with unlimited grip and edibility which means you can just focus on getting to the nearest heat source. It is definitely cheating, but the game is addictive enough that you’ll return to earlier levels and attempt to beat them fairly after unlocking other levels using the marmalade method. For an extra challenge you can also find butter or jam in which to slather your bread, which will make it more slippery or sticky.

The game only features a kitchen, lounge, bedroom, bathroom, garage, garden, petrol station and epilogue level, but along the way you will also unlock new modes of play to keep you coming back for more. In rampage mode your goal is to cause as much destruction as possible using a baguette, while free roam gives you a chance to explore without worrying about objectives. There is also a “cheese hunt” mode where you play as a rather fragile crackerbread that has to locate all the cheese in the area without getting destroyed in the process. Even racing fans are catered for with the bagel race, which offers exactly what the name implies. Finally, and a personal favorite of ours, is the zero gravity mode where your bread straps on some thrusters and can be piloted around the level. If you thought getting toasted under normal circumstances was hard wait until you try to do it with everything floating around in zero gravity! Overall the extra modes are a lot of fun and definitely adds to the replay value of the game.

Visually the game looks pretty good and features plenty of detail. The game can be played in DirectX 9, DirectX11 or OpenGL mode and you can adjust the texture as well as shadow quality. SSA, antialiasing, depth of field and bloom can also be toggled which means with everything maxed out the game looks quite decent. The developers even included a handy gif recording option that allows you to share the misadventures of your bread to social media. The camera can occasionally be a bit unwieldy when navigating tight spots, but overall we were impressed with the visuals of I Am Bread. Also worth a mention is the soundtrack which is actually very, very good. The tunes are all cheerful and upbeat which makes it impossible not to smile even when failing over and over. There is no speech, but since a moving piece of bread is disturbing enough that is probably a good thing.

Although I Am Bread looks like a “gimmick” game it is surprisingly addictive and features more than enough content to keep players busy for a while. Even after completing the story mode in one sitting we kept going back for better grades, faster times and to finish the other modes that are unlocked. Each level is timed and scored, which means fans of speed runs should have a blast. Not everyone will be a fan of the controls, but honestly without them being so clumsy the game wouldn’t have been half as much fun. The physics can also be a bit wonky at times, but overall the game is very solid.