If you liked the Playdate game Root Bear, you should check out Pup Cup
You've heard of roguelike, you've heard of Soulslike, but have you ever heard of Rootlike? Root Bear is one of those games that just perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Playdate; it's silly as hell, uses the crank and will engage your competitive side as you rack up tips from soda-drinking bears and try to beat your own high score. The game has been a massive success, so it's no surprise to see it's now inspired the development of other games in its style. Well, one game at least. Pup Cup, which recently arrived on the Playdate Catalog from developer Ledbetter Games, is a 'Root-like score-chaser' where instead of serving soda to bears, you're making delicious sweet treats for dogs (and a few other surprise guests).
In Pup Cup, you have 60 seconds to earn as many tail-wags as possible from the dogs who show up to your whipped cream stand. Some might want a towering heap, while others just want a little taste. The key is to fill the pup cup only to the height of the little box hovering over it, or the 'Good Boy Zone,' by putting the crank in the forward position. If you serve too much, whipped cream is going to splat all over the place. But too little will leave the dogs disappointed, and who wants that?
There's also Bork Mode, in which you can pet the dogs and add toppings, like a squeaky rubber duck, to earn yourself some more time. This makes things a little more complicated, though, as you have to pay attention to the D-pad icon that will briefly flash next to the dog in order to know which button to press, and you have to coordinate this correctly with the timing of your pour.
Pup Cup is a feel-good take on Root Bear. The gameplay is a little more relaxed, and it's hard not to smile at the rotation of cute dogs popping up on your screen. Some of them wear outfits and accessories, and they may end up with a swirl of whipped cream on their nose. Each dog has its own little anxiously waiting animation, and happy customers will give you heart eyes when their orders have been fulfilled. It's adorably goofy. You might even encounter a familiar knife-wielding goose or robotic dog.
As if all that wasn't wholesome enough, the team also went out and served pup cups to dogs IRL during the Puppy Bowl. You can get Pup Cup on the Playdate Catalog for $3.
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