Pastry Push review: a puzzle game that needs extra sugar

If I had to solve a puzzle every time I wanted to eat a pastry, I would be an unhappy, grumpy girl.

Pastry Push is a puzzle game from Indian start-up Refocus Labs. It doesn’t promise to give out any pastries for solving puzzles, but it made me crave for cupcakes and sweets anyway.

Gameplay: feeding the grumpy purple thing

The concept is simple. All you have to do is swipe the screen to slide a pastry across the table and get it to Moko, a purple monster embedded on the table. Before your pastry reaches Moko, you will have to collect all of the golden cherries along the way. Once a cupcake starts sliding, it will only stop when it hits an obstacle on the table or when you get to the edge of the screen. There are other elements on the table that you have to avoid or take into consideration such as flamethrowers, trap doors, and electric fans.

There are two ways to fail a level. First is by getting the cupcake destroyed before it gets to Moko or by not accomplishing the goal within an uncertain number of moves. I say uncertain because you don’t really know how many moves you have per level. The only indicator is a purple bar at the bottom of the screen. If the bar is full, then you fail the level. I didn’t like this aspect of the game because I would prefer to know the number of moves I have when solving the puzzle.

The game starts off easy, but gets a bit more difficult as the levels progress. However, what makes some levels of this game difficult isn’t actually figuring out the routes, but sliding the pastry with the right timing. For example, you have to slide the pastry past the flame thrower when it’s off and swipe at the right time so that it’s not in front of the flamethrower when it starts shooting fire. So you’re going to want to play this on a device with good screen response, otherwise it will be terribly frustrating.

Audio and Visuals: where are the colors?

Visually, I would say that Pastry Push is cute to a degree, but could use some improvement. I like how it’s not an eyesore, but it does seem like it’s lacking in colors and design. The windows were a bit bland and the table seemed dark in spite of the objects on it. It’s not the kind of ambience you’d like for a game that was about sweets. The game did make me crave for cupcakes, but that was thanks to the gameplay and not really the game design. What I do like is how they paid attention to the small details such as the coffee cup moving or the flamethrowers making a “dong!” sound when they get hit by a pastry.

Overall, the audio and the visuals don’t contribute much to making the game stand out. It did let me know that it’s a game about feeding pastries to a purple monster, but it didn’t feel quite engaging or visually appealing.