We’ve all had bad cheese at some point, but how bad does it have to be to create vivid hallucinations of a twisted Mouse House with a Steamboat Willie flavour? The dairy product in question is, in fact, the latest game published by Feardemic, developed by Simon Lukasik, and is out now on the Nintendo Switch.
A psychological first-person horror game in the guise of a Max Fleischer-inspired cartoon, you play a familiar-looking mouse that has to keep the house tidy while Dad is away, and Momsy’s popped out. For milk, no doubt. A dysfunctional family setting that takes place in a cavernous home full of chests of drawers and cupboards/closets, you pace up and down the house completing chores – arms fully extended – all the while picking up stale packets of puff-like snacks and rancid sausages. The sound of eating them is worse than the appearance.
Bitesize quests will occur where you have to clean up the home, a-la House Flipper, or zap away dirt from boots or fly swatting at spiders and their lineage. Bad Cheese is like Bendy and the Ink Machine, both in appearance and the minimalist approach. Putting aside the excellent, creepy visuals, the game does come across as a Backrooms-like game, though better. Perhaps that’s my penchant for the illustration style and dark aesthetic, though you’re more likely to stick with this than all the other clones.
For starters, Bad Cheese encourages you to explore the house, even though it’s quite linear, as you have to complete one task after the next without skipping. There’s nothing remotely taxing until combat, which is confusing. How to fight is crystal clear, yet insta-deaths were common and inconsistent, shoulder barging me towards the path of frustration, which is a shame as this is a living, breathing McBess illustration and abandoned house of dysfunction. Hell, what’s normal anyway?
Undoubtedly, Bad Cheese will draw the crowds in for its looks – and they ultimately deliver, as do the disturbing sound effects and overtones. Gameplay is a little on the monotonous side, though the previously mentioned elements carry it through to a subdued conclusion. Despite that slight dissatisfaction with how it ends, Bad Cheese is certainly worth the nightmares. And if you’re too much of a skinflint, seriously buy some out-of-date cheese for an even more ‘enlightening’ experience. Free diarrhoea with every purchase.
