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With Bread and Butter, the homebrew scene of the Sega Master System got it´s second cart release! Of course it deserves a check in the Game Treasure Magazine, and this time in english!

Facts

Developer/Publisher: Vincent Crisafulli
Platform: Sega Master System
Release: 05.01.2013
Genre: Action
Number of Players: 1-2

Development

Vincent Crisafulli, residing in the United States, is the developer of this game. In the world wide web, the people may know him as Dragonfeet or roboturchin. Crisafulli is an excellent programmer. He realized different homebrew projects in the past, and one day, he decided to create a game for the Sega Master System. After months of planning, brainstorming and programming, he completed Bread and Butter. A few different versions were released later. Version 1.00 was originally released on october 12, 2012 and is only availabe for download. It´s the complete game with all 8 Levels on a 256kb ROM. Version 1.026 is the version that was released on cart on january 5, 2013. The cart release contains the first three levels of the game. Vincent Crisafulli created 30 physical copies of his Bread and Butter game and sold them at the TooManyGames 2013 convention. For the hardware design, Vincent got valuable assistance by his father, G.Crisafulli. There is also a third version known to exist, version 1.034. This version contains level 4,5 and 6 from the original 1.00 version. These levels will never be released on physical hardware. Crisafulli explained it by the fact that these levels are too difficult for most gamers. On august 18, 2013 he announced to create some more copies of Bread and Butter.
Additionally, the game got two sequels: Bread and Butter - A Second Helping and The Coconut Caper Starring Bread and Butter. The Coconut Caper should be another cart release in the future.

Gameplay

Bread is a girl and an aspiring chef, who is always wearing an apron and a chiefs hat. Her goal is to bake the worlds greatest bread, the Bread of Legend! But to bake that hyperdimensional bread, she needs some special ingredients. These are super-sized eggs as large as a men´s torso, milk from cows in the most remote of regions, and wheat so heavenly that it floats in the sky. To get all these ingredients is a very dangerous task. Butter, a fat boy in a green shirt, is warning Bread. But she ignores Butter and goes on her way to get what she wants. Butter is following her. Not only to help Bread, but in hope to find something to eat.
On the screen, there are the points and lives to see, and in the middle is the wanted ingredient pictured. Every ingredient gives points for Bread or Butter. If 9 ingredients are collected, the next level begins. Bread and Butter is a 2 Player game, but can be played in single player too. Both figures starting in a safe zone where the animals won´t go. After losing a life, the respawn is also in that safe zone. If one of both players loses all three lives, the game is over. There are no additional lives to get during the game. The controls are easy. Right and left on the D-Pad let´s Bread and Butter go into the direction the player is looking for. Up and down is reserved to control a balloon or climp up/down a vine. While button 2 is not needed, button 1 is for jumping. The longer you hold button 1, the larger is the jump.

The three levels are very different from each other, and the opponents too. There are some giant chickens, poisonous spiders, bats and migrating geese behind Bread and Butter. The graphics are good, the geese and chickens are very funny animated. A unique style is definitely to detect. Bread and Butter has a title soundtrack, which is very simple made. There is no other music during the game, but sounds. They give a special nostalgic feeling to the player, and that´s great especially for such an arcade platformer. There are only 3 levels to play, but the game is addictive. When all three levels are completed, they repeat with a higher difficulty. Enemies are faster and have another movement style.
The 2 player mode makes a lot of fun! It´s way better than playing it alone. It seems that Bread and Butter is a pure 2 player title. While playing the game, some bugs appear from time to time. Especially in level 1. One time, there was a sound error. A permanent high tone that stops after losing a life. Another time, it was impossible to climb up the first vines. After losing another life, the bug disappeared. In 2 player mode, Butter landed on the lower platform in level 1, were normally is no way to go. It was also impossible to use the vines there to climb up to the first platform, where the safe zone is. In level 2 in 2 player mode, there is a trick to use. The ingredients appear only near the cows, and the players could walk to the end of the screen and back to collect them, without jumping on the small platforms. Sounds easy, but when 8 ingredients are collected, there is no way to get the 9th, no matter how many ingredients will be collected. It´s not manageable to reach level 3 then.

Gordman´s Opinion

Bread and Butter is an addictive, little homebrew game. It has a special charm, and when Mr. Crisafulli goes on with his Bread and Butter project, the game could be cult in the future. Sadly there are only three levels on the cart release. It wouldn´t be bad to build in more levels to the future Bread and Butter games. That game shows us where the SMS homebrew scene goes. We are in the very early era of the scene, and only two games are released on cart to date, but there are many talented programmers out there and I am pretty sure that we will see more great games like Digger Chan and Bread and Butter. I have a tip for Vincent: Participate with your game at the next SMS Power! Coding Competitions. Games like that are the reason why I manage this website and why I love to do what I do.

Availability


Bread and Butter is available for Download at SMS Power! (see the links below). Physical copies will not be produced anymore.

Links

SMS Power! entry (including downloads): Bread and Butter
Thread at Sega Age: Bread and Butter for the Sega Master System (homebrew)
Official Youtube Channel: Vincent Crisafulli

Many thanks to Vincent Crisafulli for his trustfulness and for helping me to create this report.


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