Any Button Gaming

Developer Streamline Games have made their splash into the co-op party game market with BAKE ‘N Switch, a game about essentially throwing dough at more dough and occasionally towards an oven. With TEAM17’s Overcooked and Mario Party pretty much having this genre nailed does BAKE ‘N SWITCH have what’s need to “rise” above the rest.

Let’s start with the story, all of the Master Bakers have long left the world of “Fla” and an ancient evil mould is beginning to rise, turning the cute little dough….. uhhhh….. people sour. To stop this malevolent scum from spreading you and your team of amateur bakers must sacrifice the aforementioned dough… children…. animals…. to be honest, I’m not sure what they are. They are little mental ball things with faces that you throw into an oven like some sick, savoury pagan ritual.

Graphically BAKE ‘N SWITCH is a reasonably good looking game, it’s very cutesie with some great character designs. The games art direction is almost an amalgamation of Mario Party and Overcooked with some chibi inspiration. It’s very mobile game looking, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily. The colourful design would cater well for younger children (Five to eight year olds I would guess). Music-wise the soundtrack is quite calming and pleasant, exactly what you’d expect from this genre if I’m honest.

You can choose to play as one of six bakers. Ginger, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Salt and Thyme. Each with their own unique style and special power. Special powers range from grappling hooks to oven gloves that cook dough by touch.

The gameplay is a loop of throwing little dough minions together so they combine and grow and then you literally “Yeet” them into an oven. It’s definitely simple enough and the controls are very simple. There are around 100 levels over 2 worlds, 2 bosses and around half a dozen species of unbaked bread that looks like they’ve been at grandmas medicine. This means there’s a fair amount of variety in the game, giving it some replayability and longevity, all depending on whether you have friends to play it with, but we will get to that in a bit.

In terms of performance, it’s not particularly demanding of the Switch, as a result, I never encountered any crashes, bugs or glitches. It’s always good when a game works and is sadly not always a given nowadays so high fives all round I guess.

You can play “Bread Baby Yeeting Simulator” local or online with three friends, you can even play solo if you lack the ability to make friends (Like our Senior Editor James). Couch Co-op/PVP is where I think “Baked Goods Genocide Simulator” is its strongest. Whether you are working against each other or together it will is a good way to kill some time especially with the kids. Online, Solo, I’m sure this would be fine for the younger bracket of children but trying to play a game that is clearly designed for four people alone is very tedious and got old relatively quick.

Online, now here’s the biggest issue. As far as I could work out there’s no matchmaking so you can only play with people who you have as friends. This is smart if the game is intended for young kids as they are less likely to be subjected to strangers online, this is a good thing and I appreciated this as a parent. The problem is, the game is £24.99 at present so that’s £100 give or take a few pennies to fill a lobby of friends. Which seems ridiculous when even Overcooked 2, a vastly superior game is £19.99. I feel the price for BAKE ‘N SWITCH shouldn’t really exceed £10 at most in my personal opinion.

There isn’t much else I can really say about BAKE ‘N SWITCH if I am truly honest, I have no strong feelings either way about this game. It has 100 levels which are all varying degrees of different and yet all felt exactly the same. The gameplay feels slow as you potter about the map chasing demonic balls of yeast, you have a dash button but your dash is absurdly fast in contrast to the absolute crawl you normally move at, it just comes off as jarring as it’s so out of place.

It’s a strange game to review as I am clearly not the demographic this game is aimed at hopefully and there is something there that kids will enjoy but for how long I am less optimistic about. The pricepoint grossly exceeds the product in my opinion and that stops me from being able to recommend this over Overcooked which is better and cheaper. Pick it up on a very generous sale would be my advice, It’s not a bad game it’s just not a £25 Overcooked contender.

For transparency the code reviewed was supplied by the publisher.

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Darren Colley

Gamer, dad and supporter of @SpecialEffect Charity. Dark Souls fan and gooner!