Day 75 - Afternoon Spatghetti
Short and Free, Immersive Sim, Shitpost ·
Skeeter’s Take:
If I had one word to describe Afternoon Spaghetti, it’d be “twee”. If I had two words to describe Afternoon Spaghetti, the second would be “short”.
I’m immediately dropped in front of a colorful house sat on a small flat square of ground floating in an abyss. I walk inside and meet this Beyblade of a man:
My new friend is making some afternoon spaghetti. I don’t want to be too overly critical, but I’m pretty sure the noodles need to submerge in the boiling water, not stick halfway out like the little noodles are enjoying a nice Jacuzzi soak. I’m not entirely sure how he’s planning to stir the sauce or noodles as I don’t see a traditional set of hands, and I see a serious lack of utensils.
Look, I didn’t come here to critique this guy’s cooking technique I came here to- Wait… Why am I here?
My buddy asks me to grab him some cheese - he says it’s in the fridge. I head over to the fridge, open it up and a met with this:
What the…? There’s a hole bore right through the back of the fridge - the hole cuts through a couple rooms and seems to defy all logic of physics. Even the water in the cut-in-half toilet is, well, cut in half.
I followed the strange hole until it led me to its final destination: an Art Degree show for Good Institute of Arts!
There are a few exhibits that I really enjoy:
My new friend’s center of the fridge sits in the middle of an art exhibit - it really makes a statement. Très chic!
Weighing the importance of destroying an art exhibit versus afternoon spaghetti, I ultimately deem afternoon spaghetti more important. I snag the cheese from the shelf and walk back through the door-shaped hole to my buddy.
I hand over that cheese so he can finish the much anticipated afternoon spaghetti.
My buddy thanks me and rewards me in the worst way possible:
BRIE WITHOUT YOU
And then I was like:
Recommend: I initially wasn’t going to recommend this. It’s over in a blink of an eye and there isn’t much “gameplay”, and I groaned out loud at the Brie pun, but as I was writing this review I really warmed up to Afternoon Spaghetti. It’s got this really pleasant absurdist atmosphere, sets up a small bit of lore with its 12 lines of dialogue (I did not actually count how many lines of dialogue), and ultimately is just a lead up to a single pun. I can’t tell if there’s intentionally some deeper commentary about art (what with the inclusion of the art exhibit) and juxtaposing it with a single pun, but I feel like there might be something intentional there. For me, I value seeing things and ideas I have never seen in a game before. I have never had an experience like “Afternoon Spaghetti” and I appreciate it for its simplicity and creativity.
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 7 minutes
Sam’s Take:
Afternoon Spaghetti is a game that teeters on the edge between funny and annoying. Little details really make a difference when you’re making a one-joke game like this, so I’d like to showcase a few little things that made this game work for me.
First thing is that the interdimensional fridge portal has rules. I love that it cuts through the toilet and part of the art exhibit, like it’s some sort of wormhole slice, and not just a typical Narnia portal. I also love that if you walk by the windows at the back of the exhibit, you can hear crowd chatter and cars.
There’s even a bevy of fun objects around our friend’s apartment:
When our friend makes his pun and it cuts to black and plays the music, I laughed out loud because it wasn’t expected. It’s not the most sophisticated laugh I’ve chortled, but the attention to detail made the game feel like it wasn’t made as a joke, so it got me.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say you walked into a run of the mill Unity house and talked to a basic asset npc who asked you for cheese. You walk through the fridge that is actually a door to an art exhibit. The exhibit is 4 paintings on a white wall. You take the cheese, go back, give it to your friend and let them know their cheese was in a museum. They reply “where would I brie without you”, cut to black.
Wow! That game sounds like shit don’t it? That game ending in a joke isn’t surprising at all, the game was already vapor to begin with. Afternoon Spaghetti showcases that even a shitpost needs sauce to be a good shitpost.
Take notes Baby Shooter.
Recommend: Yup
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 8 Minutes
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