10+/10

Fork, sausage, grill; a simple idea pushed to the max in one of the hardest games ever.

You find yourself on an island, next to a shipwreck, with nothing but a big fork in your hand, and no clue about what you have to do. You see what looks like brown cubes, two plaques, and… some ghosts? You roam around a bit, read the two plaques, one of which has the only help you're going to get, that you can use WASD to move (thanks, but too late, you already had to figure that out to reach it) and Z to undo. Maybe you’re clever enough to try to align with a ghost, and discover the actual levels. Good luck figuring out what you have to do! With some trial and error, maybe you discover that you have to cook the sausages on 4 spots, just once, no overcooking, and then return to the starting spot. Fork, sausage, grill. Such a simple thing, yet every level is unique in some way, forcing you to discover new ways to maneuver the sausages. Each level seems either impossible, or misleadingly obvious. Fork, sausage, grill, but they can interact in so many ways! And after many hours of maneuvering sausages, you manage to solve each and every one of the levels on this island and get an overworld sausage which allows you to reach the second island, and get introduced to the only new mechanics you’ll get until the last part: walls and stairs to climb them! The levels get a lot bigger and harder, and you realize that the first chapter, which seemed impossibly hard, were just the tutorial levels! Those that braved the levels so far usually get spooked by The Great Tower, in which you get a 4 levels high tower of sausages. And that's just the second chapter!

Fork, sausage, grill. Yet every level teaches you something new you can do, and also what not to do. Don’t step on a grill, it’s useless. Until that becomes needed. Don’t stab a sausage, or you won’t be able to get it off. Until you can. Don’t step on a sausage, or you won’t be able to get off. Until you discover the conditions that allow you to get off. Don’t drop your fork. Until you need to do just that. Don’t put a sausage on your head, or you won’t be able to get it off. Until that becomes possible and part of the solution. Never stab a sausage through the long part or you really won’t have a way to solve the level. Until the one impossible level that can only be solved by doing just that. Fork, sausage, grill, and yet so many things you can do with them.

Every level is perfectly designed, an exploration of a new way the few basic elements interact with each other. Nothing is wasted, nothing is accidental or haphazardly thrown in. If there’s a ladder with no obvious purpose, try to figure out what its purpose is. If there's a dragon statue that seems to be put there just as a decoration, it is the most essential part of the solution, try to figure out how it can be useful. Any little piece of grill is useful. Even the number of sausages and their placement is relevant. And while most other games throw a lot of different mechanics at you to keep a game fresh for more than a dozen of levels, Stephen’s Sausage Roll doesn’t need portals, trapdoors, spikes, buttons, enemies and the rest, just fork, sausage, grill. Until you get the first level without a grill and really start to question everything you thought you knew about the game!

“A simple 3D puzzle game” is how it describes itself. It is a simple 3D game, in the sense that the graphics are simple, crude pixelated objects and backgrounds. The mechanics are simple, in the sense that there are few types of objects. The levels are simple, in the sense that they rarely have more than 3 sausages in a small area. But all this simplicity hides a lot of complexity. Even the graphics, though simple, are actually far from basic. There are different types of terrains, each with its footstep sound, and complex weather with sun and fog and snow, big monuments and statues and tall buildings, and there are small differences and imperfections, a flower here, a crooked tile there, a patch of moss growing on that column, that make it look like a lived in environment, not just an abstract grid of uniform tiles. The sounds are nice, and a bit of eerie, calm music. And there’s a tragic story too, in a simple game about cooking sausages. Where did they come from? Why are they being grilled? Who’s making those chomping noises at the end of the level?? Why are you all alone, and what will happen at the end???

Overall, a really polished experience. You can’t call yourself a puzzle master if you didn’t try this one. If some games are gems, this is the perfect diamond of puzzle games, the standard against which I compare all other puzzles when judging the level designs.

How hard is it: Starts very hard, and only gets harder. If it seems to get easier, it's just because you got smarter.

How long is it: 86 levels split in 6 chapters, plus navigating the overworld. All levels in a chapter are unlocked at once, but getting access to the next chapter requires solving all of the current chapter. At least 20 hours of playtime, up to many years.

Level design: The best there is.

Quality: Excellent puzzles, very good presentation, decent QoL. The only thing I’d like is achievements. Steam cloud saving, and 3 save slots. Fast and responsive. Non-configurable controls, but decent as they are. Unlimited undo, even across restarts, and even through different levels and the overworld, you could undo all the way to the moment you started the game. Decent settings.

Worth the price: Expensive for a puzzle game, but worth every cent.

Most positive aspect for me: Excellent puzzle design.

Most negative aspect for me: No achievements, but otherwise the game is perfect.

Also consider:

A Monster's Expedition, open world puzzler with very simple mechanics yet a lot of hidden, tough secrets.

An Architect’s Adventure, open world puzzler with sticky blocks.

Can of Wormholes, very hard open world snake-inspired puzzler, with similarly varied mechanics emerging from simple items.

Delicious Donut, puzzler with even fewer items yet equally, or even harder levels.

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10/10

The most wholesome puzzle platformer I've ever played.

What is it: Calling it a platformer is totally dismissive of what the game is. Sure, there is a lot of platforming, tight precision trials that will take you to your wits' ends, and boss fights, but there is so much more! It has puzzling, platforming, exploring, adventure, all in a very beautiful, child-friendly presentation.

So, you play as Nemo, a young boy who fell down a long tunnel into a fantastic realm. You are rescued by, and befriend a little poulp (baby octopus). The goal is to fix the big elevator to get back up into the real world. In order to do that, you must find cog pieces scattered throughout the world, awarded after accomplishing something. And the tasks you can do are so diverse! You'll have to cook some food, learn to juggle, do a little dance, help two snails have a romantic lunch together, overcome your fear of darkness, play Breakout and Pong and other retro games, water the plants, gather the chickens, do a sneaky bank heist, race a penguin, catch ghosts, paint pretty pictures, look for hidden treasure, brave a thunderstorm... There are literally more than a hundred things to do. Some of them are obvious and easy, some require good precision platforming, some require deep exploration, some require a lot of lateral thinking. There's nothing like that feeling you get after finally figuring out the secret recipe, or the hidden house, or the peculiar list, or if you're more into platforming than puzzling, beating a timed trial.

The elevator goes through many floors, each with its own theme: a sandy beach, space, a flowery garden, a temple full of monkeys, a mountain, an office building, snow, a haunted house, a thunderstorm. And each level teaches you something new about what you can do, with a trial course focused on a specific mechanic, from simple moving and jumping, using paper airplanes or rockets to fly, using objects to double/triple jump... To me, these don't feel like obstacles to overcome, but more like lessons being taught. They aren't in the way, blocking all progress, but after you complete the trials, you can better navigate the rest of the game.

Other than the game contents, the presentation is superb. The graphics are very nice, cartoony but beautiful, the different worlds are well designed, the controls and mechanics are well done, beautiful sounds and music, plus a lot of extra features that make it a good modern game.

How hard is it: Moderate, not too hard but not too easy. To reach the first end, you only need to collect a little over half of the cogs, so you don't really have to do all the hard things, except that you must finish at least five boss levels to get to the end. Timed trials are optional, but reaching the second end requires collecting almost all cogs and beating a few really really tough trials.

How long is it: At least 10 hours. I've really enjoyed it for more than 30 hours already, and I didn't yet try to speedrun it.

Level design: Superb!

Quality: Excellent! Excellent presentation, good UX, plenty of settings, multiple save slots, good Steam integration with cloud save, excellent achievements (including a few for speedrunning), Steam Deck support. A few bugs encountered that are being patched.

Worth the price: Yes.

Most positive aspect for me: Looking for secrets.

Most negative aspect for me: I'm not really a fan of precision platforming, so that would be my most negative aspect, but that's not a bad thing about the game itself.

Also consider:

Abe's Oddysee, Abe's Exoddus and their new remakes, which this game reminded me of with its jump and roll mechanics, and the hunt for secrets.

Ugly, beautiful platforming with a lot of focus on puzzles.

Ori and the Blind Forest, beautiful platforming/metroidvania with a lot more fighting, but also clever exploration.

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