Bread & Fred (Review)

By Rae

When you first see SandCastles Studio and Apogee’s Bread & Fred, you could be forgiven for being distracted by its cutesy, colorful exterior and assuming you’re in for an equally cutesy time. “Certainly this can’t be a rage game!” one might think as they read the description on the website, overlayed over adorable penguin art: “CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN WITH A FRIEND, FALL, GET ANGRY & BREAK YOUR FRIENDSHIP”

Bread & Fred introduces its players to a sweet and sassy community of penguins at the base of an apparently very dangerous mountain. Their mission? To reach the top of the snowy summit, one brutal jump at a time.

Where Bread & Fred separates itself from many platformers is its 2-player experience. Unfortunately the game’s multiplayer mode isn’t fully up and running yet, but local co-op is, so you can always invite a friend over to join you for the traditional couch co-op experience. There’s also a 1-player mode where your trusty co-op partner is a rock that you can throw around as needed to maneuver your way through.

It’s honestly a pretty hilarious time with a partner – not only will you struggle as you figure out how to proceed, but nothing adds to the camaraderie quite like not jumping at the right time or jumping in the opposite direction from your partner. You’ll spend a lot of time working together to coordinate (and potentially arguing about who messed it up this time), which adds both a fun and funny layer to the average rage platformer.

What makes Bread & Fred extra fun is its accessibility settings. The game is punishing, but it doesn’t exclude players who struggle with the mountain’s challenges. You can toggle helpful add-ons like the ability to create checkpoints, which will make things a little less impossible.

Feeling extra rebellious? There’s a particularly hilarious setting for endless jumping, in which you and your partner can essentially leap your way through the air to the top with no platforming necessary. While it sounds like this might be boring, it was a pretty enjoyable experience for us when we decided to experiment with it. What sounds like an easy-peasy cheat to get to the top turns into a hilarious argument as you and your partner will still yoink each other in different directions occasionally. We still fully enjoyed this mode of exploration for the sheer fun of it, though it obviously wasn’t as rewarding as the parts we struggled through the hard way.

With how pretty the game is and the bonus photos tucked away in remote corners of the mountain to discover, it was still a pleasure to get to explore this little world.

My biggest warning is that this isn’t a fast platformer to speed and jump around. The movements tend to be pretty calculated. If you like speedy platforming (ie. Celeste) this may not be the best fit for you. Additionally, while the accessibility options definitely open up the game, there’s no real middle-of-the-road difficulty. You can either struggle your way through, lightening up the burden with checkpoints here and there, or you can enable settings that make the challenge pretty moot, but allow you to explore the little world of Bread & Fred.

If you’re a fan of difficult challenges, Bread & Fred sure offers one. Even if you’re not, the accessibility options will help you (and a friend!) enjoy scaling the summit all the same. For $14.99 on GoG/Steam it’s a pretty reasonable way to spend an evening together and have some fun.

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