Table Trouble review: an interesting conundrum

Here’s some food for thought! Table Trouble is an Indonesian-made puzzle game that puts you in the shoes of a little blob that has decreed itself chef. As this little blobby chef, you must produce yummy food. Unfortunately the only way you can get that angry strawberry, cream, peanut, or chocolate filling into its respective food-based-receptacle is if you give them a great big kick in the right direction.

Now here’s where Table Trouble has either incredibly well thought out game design, or is simply poorly-made, enough so it is frustrating beyond belief.

Each level in Table Trouble takes place on a checkerboard. This board limits your strawberry’s movements to just four directions, and the strawberry must be coaxed into its respective bun or puff in order for the level to end. Now, the maneuvering can only be done through your blobby chef. Each little chef you put down has a timer that boots the strawberry forward whenever the chef’s timer finishes ticking. You’re supposed to make use of multiple chefs to push the strawberry around.

Sounds simple enough, right? Except that Table Trouble tosses another challenge your way. You can just fill up that bun, or you can try to get all three stars and then fill it up. The stars actually don’t seem to give you any in-game bonuses, they’re just a challenge staring you in the face. And honestly? The game looks so simple, you’re not going to back down. That is, until its horrifically difficult puzzles force you to.

I’m terrible with anything that needs me to imagine a solution, so this game has been particularly difficult to play. Yet the sense of achievement I feel when I pick up just one star on a tough level is phenomenal. This is a smart game, one that forces you to think.

It makes no sense to me because Table Trouble doesn’t look good enough to be good. The game lacks graphical polish and looks way too simple to be an indie studio product. Yet its game design saves it, keeping it from becoming yet another poorly-made product. Or at least I think it does. Even now, I still think Table Trouble has either had a genius or a sadist working on it. Perhaps more likely a sadist because its background music is pretty jarring for a puzzle game.

Table Trouble’s app store description talks about the different characteristics of each filling character, but I can’t tell you if there’s extra depth in that part of the game because I can’t even get past the strawberry stage without cheating and using a hint (that gives you like 80 percent of the solution then leaves you hanging). There are four stages in total though, with one stage for each filling, so it makes sense that each filling would come with its own characteristic.

However I doubt many people are going to get a taste of this food puzzle game. Table Trouble is a premium offering and costs $0.99 on the App Store, and I feel like people just aren’t going to spend on it because of its visuals. It’s a pity because the game does offer a decent amount of brain-boggling content; it just doesn’t look good enough for what it can do.

Table Trouble is available for PC, Android, and iOS at $0.99.