Neon Noodles Review
Automation puzzler Neon Noodles is now available on consoles.
Neon Noodles. Vivid Helix / Eastasiasoft
Vivid Helix (solo developer Radu Muresan) released Neon Noodles a couple of years ago on PC. Earlier this month, Eastasiasoft published the game on consoles, providing a great opportunity for me to check out this game that I’ve long wanted to play.
Neon Noodles is an automation puzzle game where players are tasked with creating and programming an assembly line of dispensers, tools, conveyor belts, and robots to cook various kinds of food. The protagonist lives in a dystopian cyberpunk world, where they have been mind-wiped and sentenced to endlessly prepare meals for customers wealthy enough to eat something other than the nutritional goop that everyone else consumes.
Neon Noodles. Vivid Helix / Eastasiasoft
Each level is a grid, where you must place components and connect them to cook the recipes. Conveyor belts carry items, but simply having them grab items from dispensers and push them through tools like knives or pans isn’t enough to finish most puzzles. Players gain access to various types of automatons, including robots and drones, to perform more complex tasks. The game features a programming interface for robots, allowing players to set up sequences of actions, including movement, picking up or dropping items, and using tools within the grid. The programs loop, and will run until there’s an error or the level’s production goals are complete.
Neon Noodles is open-ended. You’re allowed to make your assembly line creation as simple or elaborate as you like. After you finish a level, the game tells you about your efficiency on three metrics—number of steps in the program, area of your solution, and how long it took to complete the automated cycle. Whether you decide to challenge yourself to become more efficient in your cooking is up to you.
Playing the game with a controller is simple and intuitive. There’s a guide on the left side of the screen that outlines the actions you can take and which button to press for each. You can undo and redo actions, a handy feature that saved me from a lot of grief.
Neon Noodles. Vivid Helix / Eastasiasoft
I only wish the programming interface had a few more features. Each line represents one automaton, and not many are displayed at once, so you’re forced to scroll up and down to compare lines that are too far apart; it’d be nice if you could show or hide rows of instructions. When the program runs, the coding interface functions like a video editor’s timeline, with a playhead and a vertical line that indicate the current time position during playback. However, the playhead is only visible while the program is running. Having it there while editing would have been incredibly useful; when trying to time actions against each other, I often had to count steps, because the missing playhead made it hard to see how things lined up at a glance. However, I appreciated that once your program is running, you can pause it at any time and manually move forward or backward through the steps one at a time.
Neon Noodles. Vivid Helix / Eastasiasoft
The game is 3D, but played on a flat grid, and the visuals don’t distract from this primary interface. The blocks you place are marked with neon-colored line art icons, defining their function clearly. The bright game UI is also easy to read, with clear text and icons that make it easy to understand your tools, goals, and program. I could imagine it becoming more elaborate visually with its cyberpunk theme, but that change would come at the cost of clarity.
I haven’t finished Neon Noodles yet, but I’m having a great time with it so far. I get caught up in trying to make the most efficient solutions possible. Still, since I don’t necessarily have to, the game is never a frustrating experience because I can opt for less elegant but functional designs and just move on. If you enjoy puzzle games and have yet to check this one out, it’s a great time to do so now that it’s available on more platforms.
Neon Noodles is available on Steam, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 8/10
Played on: PS5
