Smoke Break! Review (PC)

Like a moth to a flame, the bauble of smoke eludes the chef who’s competent, but orbits the burnt pie as if to illustrate two peas in a pod—a match made in heaven. A big ol’ puff of smoke—aptly named Applewood, for some reason that’s beyond my control—yearns to eat the pie, blissfully unaware that, between the farthest counter and the grill, there are obstacles of a culinary sort fighting tooth and nail to keep a natural pairing from happening. It’s poetic, but boy is Smoke Break! silly.

I take it back. Smoke Break! isn’t silly— it’s primitive, kind of like I Am Fish, in the sense that it serves only to bring a moth to a flame, a fish to a bowl of water, or, in this case, a ball of smoke to a burnt pie. It doesn’t go much further than that, I’ll admit. And so, if you did happen to have high hopes of indulging in a poetic expedition of camaraderie, kitchen-based tomfoolery, and heart-warming conversations amongst baked goods and make-believe sous chefs, then you might as well turn back now and divert your attention elsewhere. Simply, the waters don’t run all that deep here. It’s a short three-dimensional stealth-based adventure game about smoke, pies, and paranoid restauranteurs — and that’s it.

If you’re eager to take a big ol’ bite out of this burnt apple pie, then prepare a paper napkin and pull up a pew. Let’s eat.

No Smoke Without Fire

Smoke Break! spins a small and simple yarn—a tale that doesn’t take a genius to digest, much less figure out how such a tale would conclude in its chosen setting. In short, it casts its focus on the ball of smoke, Applewood—a living, barely breathing puff of gray—and their desperate pursuit of a charred treat, which just so happens to be the farthest thing from the local pastries out in the front of a pie-making warehouse. The goal here, as said puff of gray, is to sneak and glide your way through the factory corridors, whether it’s by sabotaging equipment to distract workshop employees, altering your size to accommodate vast open or enclosed spaces, or recklessly rolling through the kitchen without a care in the world. The endgame? Why, finding the burnt pie, of course. Don’t ask.

The bulk of Smoke Break! plays out like a traditional top-down stealth game, with the player having to swiftly move between corridors, evade flashlights, and cause distractions wherever possible to snake through certain tight spaces and what have you. But, there’s something else of note stashed away here: a janitor who just so happens to own an all-powerful vacuum that can single-handedly exhume your entire “body” and the essence you carry with you. With that minor inconvenience, there’s anything step that you must take over the duration of your journey across the workshop, which is to absorb smoke particles to increase your prowess and size. The larger the cloud, the higher the chance of evading a somewhat grizzly fate, yada yada yada.

Let it Burn

Smoke Break! isn’t massively difficult, though it does require some forward thinking skills to solve, more so towards the latter half of the journey when certain all-seeing gazers consume large chunks of the screen and what have you. Yet, it still rolls out like a bog-standard stealth game, meaning, progress is often made with a well-oiled combination of intuition and dumb luck. In my experience, a lot of the trials were accomplished without so much as a sliver of grace. That didn’t mean that the occasional calculated move wasn’t necessary, mind you. Even still, I found that a good portion of the game was as simple as shuffling through grates and half-heartedly zigzagging between chefs like a bat out of hell. Again, perhaps that boiled down to pot luck.

On the flip side, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome with unnecessary filler or mindless jargon that contributes little to no value to the overarching narrative. Story-wise, it’s a little on the lighter side of the spectrum, with a simple A-to-B progression system serving as its bread and butter, or smoke and pie, in this case. This isn’t an issue, though it is worth pointing out that there isn’t a lot of replay value to unravel here, much less any post-game experiences to unlock in light of the closing moments. Still, if you have an hour or so to spare, then you should enjoy taking a big ol’ bite out of this overcooked pie. Truth be told, it isn’t likely to leave a lasting impression on your taste buds, but that isn’t to say that you won’t get a kick out of the idea of sampling it.

Verdict

Smoke Break! provided me with everything it set out to serve: a brief romp through a chaotic kitchen with a stealthy culinary twist that would keep me firmly on my toes for an hour or two. With a light-hearted touch, those two short hours became an interesting, almost laughably engaging experience with a good amount to uncover. Granted, it wasn’t the jam-packed smoke-centric sim that I might’ve wanted, but it certainly possessed an unexpected level of complexity in its bite-sized, yet oddly wholesome form.

To paint it in a simple manner, fans of stealth-based games that voluntarily adopt illogical ideas and quirky set designs ought to find a place to wipe their feet in the cozy quarters of these crust-coddled corridors. While said fans aren’t likely to be able to feast on the whole caboodle among the laced edges of this peculiar appetizer, they should have enough to keep them busy for a handful of hours…at least until the pie loses its appeal.