Roguebeltlikes: Cheeseonomics Deluxe

A few days ago while I was doing my ceremonial daily discovery queue on Steam, a game called Cheeseonomic Deluxe appeared. As I am quickly realizing, my artistic taste in modern indie games has shifted a bit towards games that have a well-defined MS Paint or Flash aesthetic. Games like Ark's Wonder Dungeon for example (for which I also wrote a blog about!).

Cheeseonomics Deluxe does not disappoint in that regards, with a design most akin to late 90s/early 2000s edutainment games using big bezels, stock-y animations and a properly fitting midi-esque soundtrack. All of which is really gouda, but the additional bit of sauce on top is taking something which is a rarity in Roguelikes: Belt games.

(the main screen, after the title)

The Big Cheese

The core gameplay loop is simple on the surface but quite difficult in practice. Betsy prints out milk, you sell milk and milk accessories (I tell you hwat) to earn enough profit to pass the level. But you can't earn too much profit, or else you'll go bust. You have to balance the money you make into the goldilocks zone. Not only that but you have to make sure your factory is properly load balanced, if you don't play your cards right you'll back up your production chain and either fail to make the min or worse, cause Betsy to explode.

You have various means of production to pump up your sales numbers and really milk Betsy for all she's worth. You could simply turn milk into cheese, then break the cheese into wedges and wrap the wedges. Or you can build increasingly complicated Rube Goldberg machines converting milk into milk + cream, turning the cream into butter, tossing the butter into the trash and then just selling the milk.

(an example of a bad setup i made)

Since each item has its own production time and value, you're often doing mental calculations to try and figure out how to get JUST below the maximum. Note that this game (as a score attack roguelike) does have the 'Balatro Problem' in that you can fully calculate out exactly how much your factory will earn given that the tick count to create an item, timer etc are all fully visible.

This is where the game also includes memos. Memos come in two forms: an active ability you can buy and use or a boss affix tied to a level. Usable memos include things like shooting your machines with a gun to slow down production, inverting your profit or speeding up milk production. Boss affixes on the other hand are there to force you to play differently, they may reduce the amount of money earned by certain goods or trigger partway through the level to throw a wrench in your plans.

(memos you can purchase, including a gun. yes, 1337 was a complete coincidence)

I think for the most part all of these systems work well together. My one concern is that I think the game is relatively 'static' so to speak, memos are the main way of introducing dynamism but if you have a prebuilt idea of a factory setup to get you to specific value thresholds then you can sort of just reuse those from level to level. The levels do change up form a bit here and there by adding walls or blockers you need to bounce over narrowing factory size, but often factory design is the same building blocks. It's not a major criticism however, the game's only $9.99 and in Early Access. It's mostly something you'll recognize if you've played other factory games a lot and a design constraint with putting it into a roguelike form.

That said, I think levels could use a bit more interactivity to differentiate them. Right now where I'm at in the game the major difference between levels is Bessie placement, basic walls/obstacles and the deposit placement. As a spitball example, something that turns your produced goods 'golden' in a radius around it in the middle of a level doubling their sell price could impose more interesting routing concerns. Stuff like that is what I'd like to see the game grow into as it goes through early access.

One other small nit is that there's a relatively long and enforced campaign which functions as a tutorial before you can get into the full roguelike mode and start earning cheddar for real. I didn't particularly mind it since the writing and voice acting was charming during the process but some folks with similar levels of experience might find it a bit grating. You know. Like the thing that covers sewers.

The Cheese Stands Together

Overall I've had a lot of fun with the game. It just oozes charm everywhere, including the pseudo-Windows 95, well, window it contains the game within. And it has one hell of a catchy theme song on the store page, something that I think will hook you too if you check it out. I fully intend on writing a proper positive review on Steam when I get around to it, since Steam reviews matter more for coverage than my dinky little blog posting here. Until then though, I hope anyone reading this supports indie games when you can.