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I am Bread

Indie Calendar - I am Bread

Bossa Studios follows up on the grizzly Surgeon Simulator with an epic slice of gaming.

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"I am Bread is about a sentient loaf of bread," opens the description of the game from Bossa Studios' Luke Williams. It's one of the stranger concepts we've come across in the world of gaming, and that's certainly saying something. It's also a great introductory line to a game and an article such as this.

"Every day a new slice of that loaf comes to life with the mindless and never ending desire to become toast. At the beginning of each day, the loaf finds itself in a new environment and the next slice must figure out how to become toast by any means necessary."

Bossa Studios hit the big-time with Surgeon Simulator. It's a grizzly game that requires superhuman hand-eye coordination, and often the results are hilarious, much to the detriment of the patient under the knife. It's a tough act to follow, but in this new odd-ball concept, it seems like they might just be able to do it.

Williams, the game's lead designer, explained: "That's essentially how I first came up with the idea; it was a simple goal that every player can understand. From there, it's become this crazy 3D puzzle game about finding out where you can toast yourself and then figuring how you're going to get there. Another big part of early development was trying to answer the age old question "If bread came to life, how would it move around?" so the challenge of making that fun and look good was enticing."

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Again, the casual way in which Williams drops lines like "if bread came to life" and "how would it move around"- points to a development process that borders on the absurd, and a team that isn't afraid to take risks.

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"Development so far has been going well, we have the core of the game now and it's all about taking it as far as we can. Early Access is really just an extension of what we did with Surgeon Simulator, where the free updates added new surgeries and achievements that were all driven by the community. This is just a more conscious effort to include the players early on."

I am Bread has been on Early Access since December 3, where it has attracted very positive feedback from early adopters. It speaks to a community that's been well served with crazy games of late, with the studio's own Surgeon Simulator being one example, and Coffee Stain's Goat Simulator being another.

With the game online and in the public domain, the path ahead is a fairly transparent one: "Next year we plan to be out of Early Access quite soon into the new year, and will then continue to work with players to decide where the game goes next," Williams says. "It'd be great to support Steam Workshop to really let players take the bread wherever they want, but at the very least we want a solid, fun experience about bread and its adventures to become toast."

Are there any drawbacks to working in the sphere of comedy, on titles such as this? Maybe a couple, as Williams admits: "If we knew how many bread puns we'd created since the announcement of the game, I might have reconsidered the protagonist, we've literally heard thousands by this point..."

Well, frankly, you reap what you sow. Though if we're honest, it's been really hard to resist the urge to make a series of bread-related puns and jokes, but we've made it thus far without crumbling, so we'll continue in that vein. Finally, Williams told us the real reason, the secret reason, behind the development of the game.
 
"I'm not sure how many toast enthusiasts we have in the studio, but I've always been a big fan so I'd like to think this is my way of slowly converting everyone in to toast loving people."

I am Bread, is as mentioned before, out now on Steam Early Access. If we're going to avoid making a toast pun, this Calendar entry is going to have to end right here...

Update: We originally referred to the lead designer of I am Bread as Luke Wilson. In fact we meant to say Luke Williams. So, sorry about that.

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I am BreadScore

I am Bread

REVIEW. Written by Simon Eriksson

"Truth be told it's a lot more fun watching others play this than actually playing it yourself."



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