L.G.C. |Reviews| — Stephen’s Sausage Roll

Your intrepid heroes play with sausages, roll sausages, and burn sausages. Sausages. Stephen’s Sausage Roll faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Stephen’s Sausage Roll
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/353540
Devel: Increpare (aka Stephen Lavelle)
Engine: Unity
Price: €27.99/US$29.99/CDN$32.99
Wazzat: (from the creator of English Country Tune) A simple 3d puzzle game.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

V-

Holds a steady 60 @ 1080 and 2160 a.k.a. UHD.
Even manages to revert back to 1080 after switching to 2160 and back, good jerb!
When using the keyboard it does not disable the rumble on the Xclone controlla in the menu.
This led to a solid 15sec of WHERE THE FK is that noise coming from and why does it only happen when I hit enter!?11!?
Fortunately I was able to put 2 and 13 together.
That said, it disables rumble in-game so I’m calling this a bug, not a feature.

J-

P-

Played most of it on the Steambox.
Absolutely no complaints, the framerate didn’t really dip to any degree I could notice.
- Which is especially relevant since the SteamBox has an Athlon X4 860K and GTX 750Ti.
- Nowadays, that’s the bare minimum of what you’d call a gaming machine.

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Well it’s not hipster-pixel, it’s Minecraft-pixel.
Bassically the same thing as hipster-pixel, but with more 3D.
This can make figuring out the “path” in the overworld a bit challenging but but compared to the game it’s easy sauce.
Sound effects and background music exist but grow hella repetitive with a quickness.
I would say put on some Slayer but unless you want to go Postal stick with Enya.

J-

Mmm…low res sausage

P-

Well… There’s really not much else I can say here, is there?
It’s programmer art paired with elevator music. It’s functional, completely inoffensive but also nothing to write home about.
As far as aesthetics go, it’s functional but it’s completely unremarkable.

Total-

Control

V-

It rumbles.
X Clone controlla worked OOTB and that’s probably the best way to play this critter.
And that’s a good thing since you want to be as far away from expensive objects as possible.
P-man will talk about it in detail but this was developed on a MB.

J-

Movement takes some getting used to, but it does make sense.

P-

Like I mentioned the Steam segment, this game doesn’t use the default Unity input handler.
It uses Rewired, which is a $45 asset that will take care of input for just about every single platform ever!
I don’t know exactly how it’s doing it, since it’s not open sauce, but it does it very competently.
And the Chairquisition is nothing if not a meritocracy.

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FUN

V-

Ah, the Dark Souls of puzzle games.
Yes, my brain said “ouch”
Releasing a game with only word of mouth marketing and a $30 price tag is a bold strategy, Cotton.
Granted the price (along with the vague ass-description) got people talking about the game (case in point)
Hell, if this was $9.99 we probably would have passed it off as another puzzle game.
Unfortunately that’s exactly what Stephen’s Sausage Roll is, another puzzle game.
At least that’s why my initial 80min of gameplay has lead me to believe.
Not to say it isn’t a brilliant puzzle game (because it is) that gives you an immense sense of accomplishment for each sausage collected.
Hell, for all I know Stephen’s Sausage Roll could go full-metal Frog Fractions at some point but I don’t think I’ll ever find out.
And that’s the problem.

J-

FUCK THIS GAME IS HARD
I’m just fucking awful at this type of puzzle.
Roommate got involved and that devolved into the opening scene from 2001
The rules are simple, but goddamn there is a shit ton of depth
I solved 6

P-

This is the kind of game you sit down on the couch with to exercise nothing but your neurons.
Careful, though. You might tie a knot in your grey matter.
This is the epitome of a game that focus on Mechanics.
And I keep bringing up Mechanics and Story on the Fun section, so I might as well explain
The way I see it, at their core, games can be divided into Aesthetics, sound and graphics. Narrative, which is divided between the story the devs built in to the game and the narrative your character plays through due to your actions as a player. And finally you have mechanics, which is how you interact with the game.
Like I’ve mentioned before, Mechanics rule supreme in my opinion.
In fact, if a game has its narrative and aesthetics developed AROUND the Mechanics it’s bound to be a game I’ll enjoy very much. Half-Life 2, Dark Souls, Silent Hill 2, etc.
Stephen’s Sausage Roll is almost utopian as a videogame.
The aesthetics are simple, programmer art and elevator music. It’s about as non-aesthetic as you can get.
The only Narrative to be had is the one you, the player, create for yourself. Why is this character so obsessed with making sure all these sausages are evenly cooked?
The only thing this game has any complexity to is in how the mechanics allow you to progress through the game.
You may make the argument that without even a semblance of a story, you don’t have motivation to keep progressing through the game.
- To you I say: Minecraft.
And seeing as I like mechanics over everything else in games, 3 chairs.
Doesn’t get 4 because it tends to burn me out along with the sausages you’re pushing and rolling in-game.

Total-

Final –