The wonderful thing about the indie gaming scene is that it churns out some of the most unique things out there. Want a game about bad dating tips from sleazy Europeans? It’s available. How about a game where you file taxes? Sure, why not? And now we have Neon Noodles, the “Cyberpunk Kitchen Automation” game from Vivid Helix.
You read that right. Cyberpunk Kitchen Automation. This is one of the weirdest things around, a game where literally the entire goal is to read some icon based recipes on screen and then replicate them within the minimum number of movements possible to create a set quantity of virtual dishes. That’s…a way to pass time. Neon Noodles is no frills at all, just a grid gameboard, some basic instructions, and nothing else. What this is essentially is a video game version of visual coding for dummies. If you code poorly, your robots hit and you fail to proceed. If you code with too many movements, you have a lower score than others, which is something you’re trying to avoid. It’s straightforward, but it’s definitely not simple.
Recipes increase in complexity quickly and creating a proper assembly line where the robots can produce dish after dish is challenging to say the least. Every keystroke or click produces a movement and to get things just right and sync up multiple robots requires a certain level of capacity in basic programming skill. Neon Noodles is vaguely reminiscent of Spacechem in some ways, but it’s not nearly as fun unfortunately. Where Spacechem gives you something to accomplish in a way that makes you want to try harder, Neon Noodles simply gives you a tedious task with minimal animation and then expects you to maximize your efficiency, rather like having a particularly demanding middle manager who treats you like a number.
The tutorial for Neon Noodles gives you the basics, but then just leaves you hanging. By the time it’s time to make sushi, you’re left sorting out just how to time everything and experimenting over and over. Complete a stage and you simply move on to the next. There’s nothing else here. Just program, crank out the food, move on. The appeal of a title like this is limited pretty much to programmers and those that are interested in programming. That means minimal at best, as evidenced by the fact that it’s been available on Steam since fall of last year in Early Access in one form or another and there are only a handful of reviews and comments. The majority of gamers, even puzzle gamers, won’t gravitate towards a game like Neon Noodles.
Visually, the game is quite basic as well, with a variety of static neon cubes that represent the foods you are preparing and low detailed robots. There’s nothing else really happening on screen, other than you fast forwarding your recipes to see if your robots bump or overlap in any matter and small alterations to your program. Neon Noodles actually feels like programming, partly because it is, and partly because there’s no attempt to create any semblance of immersion or fun. The music is decent and feels cyberpunk-ish, but also quickly becomes tedious as you struggle to make basic foods with soulless robots and other devices.
Programmers will delight in a relaxing coding and food simulator that produces nothing and compares their results to other players’ work, but aside from that, most people will likely become bored quickly with Neon Noodles. It does exactly what it sets out to do, create a robot cooking experience that, when mastered correctly, results in an almost artistic dance of robot production lines, but ultimately generates nothing but generic results and a complete lack of fun factor. If you want to play a game and practice linear coding skills, Neon Noodles is the game for you. Otherwise, look elsewhere for your entertainment.
This review was based on a digital copy of Neon Noodles provided by the publisher. It was played on a gaming PC and is still in Steam Early Access. The game reviewed above will not necessarily be the finished product after Early Access is completed. One fatal crash was experienced during play over the course of this review. Neon Noodles is planned for release on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4, and Linux as well. Enjoy programming!