For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Born of Bread. This game, from developers WildArts, is set to come out this summer.
Other than the pictures on the eShop, i didn't know anything about this game before playing it. i was uncertain if this was going to be a kids game or something for everyone to play. I can say that this is something everyone can play, other than the art style there's not much here that's aimed at kids.
This demo appears to be taken from the start of the game. it's not made clear if it is the entire first part of the game or whether it was edited a little to be a demo. there's no mention as to whether or not your save file will be carried over into the main game when you buy it. As you'll see from this video, there doesn't appear to be any reason to do the start again as there isn't any backtracking. the story that's being told just keeps on going forward. But as it is the start of the game, we get to play the tutorial and learn about the world, characters, and some of the backstory.
On #NintendoSwitch, the game looks great. it has an interesting artstyle in that the characters are 2D and the rest of the world is 3D. it works well as the characters look very sharp and clear. they have a lot of emotions on their faces. the only issue i saw with this approach was that the characters, sometimes, seemed to not have many frames of animation. another one, when interacting with the 3D world, was a lack of shadows under them. there was a platforming section where it was difficult to judge distance and a section near the end of the video on stairs where it looked like the characters were floating. Born of Bread is on other platforms so it could have shadows on them.
The lack of shadows could be a Switch specific issue as could the couple of instances of slowdown and stuttering. But this is also a DEMO and the game could be much more optimised when it comes out. as a demo it really works as i am interested in playing the full game when it comes out. it's also great in how it introduces characters, the world, and the tutorial. if you're intrigued, i do recommend trying out the demo.
