Ya’know, a twinkie can withstand a lot and still come out lookin’ like a twinkie. I’m not so sure about cupcakes. BattleCakes takes place in a world where cupcake is king. Bandying about as heroes the BattleCakes themselves consist of a protagonist whose name is yours to choose, your friends Red Velvet and Midnite Truffle. And while BattleCakes is very much in the pre-alpha stages of development, it has a lot of charm to look forward to.
BattleCakes demo opens up with the Battlecakes themselves ready for an adventure. Initially tasked with cleaning out old Chuck’s house of horrors. You see, it’s been off-season for haunted houses and with haunted house season coming back in, he needs someone to go through and clean out all the honeybuns. Unfortunately, some of the decorations fall and you’re required to get a Chuckpass in order to enter anyway so, be on your way.
With a light-hearted approach and simple battle mechanics, BattleCakes offers an experience that seems like it’s aimed at a younger crowd with a more novice understanding of RPGs. The demo didn’t go into too much detail beyond receiving a few quests and fighting in a few battles. What it did show was a solid foundation and how the game will perform mechanically. BattleCakes has a friendly demeanor about it and that shines through in various ways.
Primarily, you can win battles by befriending your enemies. This is handled through a charm credit system that allows you to charm your enemies, filling up their health bar with green. Once you befriend all enemies on a screen, you gain experience and move on. Or if you’re just into killin’ you can do that too.
At this point, I’d like to remind everyone that BattleCakes is in the pre-alpha stages of development. Just about everything at this point is subject to change. That said, it’s still a public demo and therefore, subject to criticism.
The battle system so far is incredibly boring. You can either befriend or attack and it really is just moving a bar. Either you’re fillin’ up red for damage or green for friendliness. The animations are very small on the screen, have little to no sound effects, and aren’t very flashy in the slightest. As a result, the fighting feels very hollow. Like I said though, it’s got some good bones. The ability to befriend enemies makes me think there’s more to this battle system than we’re being shown.
I’m really down with this art style though. Everything in BattleCakes is cartoonish with bright vibrant coloring and hazard outlines. Even at this stage, the game is very pretty to look at. If the art direction is any indication, battles should actually be VERY colorful and fun on time of release. Also, the currency is jelly beans! That’s adorable!
The writing is as you’d expect, lots of food puns and characters acting like things that are a big deal aren’t a big deal. At this point, the writing is actually a little boring. Normally my style, it’s become a little tiring. I hope the entire game isn’t written this way as it feels cheap to fill your game with food puns and abandon the search for a new style of humor to make your own. The world is named Pasteleria by the way. I’m hoping for more even though I know food puns would probably do it for me.
BattleCakes promises to be a light-hearted, easy to get into RPG experience. My hope is that it’s slightly deeper than being shown at the demo, both mechanically and thematically, and I’m anticipating watching development as it progresses.
