Bad Cheese Review

Have you ever had a fever dream where everything just feels wrong, from the look of somewhere you know to the sounds you hear? Have you ever considered what that would look like if you added a 1920s animation twist? Welp, now you will, thanks to Bad Cheese, the first game from developer Simon Lukasik.

Bad Cheese has you take the role of a young mouse who must look after his home and family while his mother is away for the weekend. The aim is to be as helpful as possible, while ensuring that you keep your father happy, because you really don’t want to make him unhappy. Now, I want to make this point very clear: this game explores some dark themes, including abuse, so you should be aware of that going in. 

That aside, the plot is interesting and well-written, with the main character remaining so positively sweet throughout that it makes everything feel even stranger. See, when I mentioned a fever dream, I really wasn’t kidding, as everything in the house shifts and changes to the horrific. For instance, your father can either be a mechanical bear with a gramophone inside, or a mass of flesh and faces begging you for his pills, or he’ll “punish” you. It’s all really weird and disturbing, but it works so well because the main character seems so oblivious to it. 

The actual gameplay is essentially a series of different puzzles disguised as various tasks. For instance, you’ll start by having to clean the kitchen of plates and cobwebs, before having to fight off the spiders and eventually the spider queen. It helps the entire game to never feel boring, but there are some issues. While I found the initial game technically worked, one boss fight was either bugged or the solution was completely different from what I was doing, but I could not figure it out. Eventually, I had to, please excuse the pun, cheese it to win the fight.  

That aside, the real strength of Bad Cheese is the design of the world and the characters. The 1920s cartoon aesthetic is fantastic to look at, and the entire game manages to remain in 2D throughout. The voice acting is also stellar, although you’d not be able to relate to those old cartoons, considering they were silent. Meanwhile, the character designs are so horrific that it’s haunting, but fit into the world so perfectly that it makes you wonder why this hasn’t been done in the past. 

The game also does a great job of building a sense of tension, even though it’s a cartoon. It isn’t exactly scary, at least beyond some of the connotations about what is happening. Instead, there’s a constant sense of unease, and some of the death animations are both hilarious and grim at the same time. For instance, being eaten by a giant fish-mouse combination that’s all teeth and skulls. 

Honestly, I would say that Bad Cheese is a game that people should try for the experience alone, if not for the gameplay. On the surface, it’s a simple puzzle game with a bit of combat, and that’s more than enough, really. While there are some issues with the mechanics, that’s nothing new in even AAA games, and many will hopefully be sorted out before the release. If you’re a fan of the time period, art style or are simply looking for something a little different, then Bad Cheese is one to look at.