Serving Up Sweetness as a Spiky Barista
Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cubes is a cute puzzle game where you control a hedgehog that is responsible for making sure every cup of coffee has enough sugar for a bunch of customers.
That makes the gameplay sound a bit more extravagant than it actually is. The goal of each stage is to push one, or several, cubes of sugar into each cup of coffee positioned around the level. Cubes can be pushed from any side, and the main obstacle that you’ll be up against are haphazardly placed holes in the ground.
Thankfully, these holes can be quickly plugged up with macarons that can also be found placed around the level. Once the hole is filled, the hedgehog, sugar cubes, and even other macarons can be pushed over the top of them without incident.
Simple Mechanics and Repeatable Routes
Many of the puzzle solutions are as straightforward as they first appear, partially because of how simple the mechanics remain throughout the game. Sugar cubes can be pushed into any coffee cup on the level. This means that levels that feature multiple sugar cubes don’t necessarily have more difficult solutions. Especially since many levels that feature multiple sugar cubes place them in the same general area. This means if both of the coffee cups are near each other at the end of the level, then the route to get both cubes to the cups can be repeated. It doesn’t require any additional problem-solving.
Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cube’s difficulty is low to moderate. Many of the levels can be solved fairly quickly, with the solutions presenting themselves without too much thought. But some do have a more challenging layout that can take a bit longer to process.
This is usually a result of figuring out how to best navigate the limited space in the level. The most complicated are the ones that don’t give a ton of room to work with. Blocks need to be pushed to be moved. There is no mechanic for pulling them.
So anytime a block is pressed against a wall, it can only be pushed away if it’s possible to create an opening on the opposite side of it. This also means if a block is pushed into a corner, it is effectively unusable.
When levels start including three blocks of sugar cubes and multiple macarons that need to be moved into holes, that quickly limits the amount of moves that can be made without failing the puzzle.
Trial, Error, and Precise Loops
There isn’t anything in the way of a hint system, but there is an option to undo the last action that was taken. This is great for two reasons. Firstly, it lets players trial and error puzzles without needing to reset everything. Yet it also means if you make a mistake, you don’t need to start all over.
This is great because the very nature of this type of puzzler is that accidentally pushing a block against the wall can immediately end an attempt. It’s also nice that the undo option goes to the previous action that affected a block, and not just the last movement that the player has taken. Especially since some puzzles require doing wide loops around obstacles in the map to avoid pushing the block against a wall or into a corner where it can’t be moved.
A Familiar Hedgehog Aesthetic
Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cubes is actually the second game in the series. Which unsurprisingly follows Little Helper Cafe.
The game remains largely unchanged from the first one. From the gameplay loop to the hedgehog with an unusually large butt. That’s not an exaggeration either. For whatever reason, the developers have decided to design this little hedgehog with enough cake to make a French Patisserie jealous.
But returning to the original point, the gameplay, graphics, and overall feel are all identical to the first game. So if you’ve played that game or are looking at a handful of puzzle games to binge over a weekend, looking for a Gamerscore boost, you at least have options.
Probably the best thing about Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cubes is the soundtrack. Most run-of-the-mill puzzle games that only cost a handful of dollars make you suffer through monotonous music that is as annoying as it is relentless. Little Helper Cafe manages to accompany its levels with a half decent jazzy soundtrack that doesn’t feel overbearing.
A Reliable, If Familiar, Puzzler
As a whole though, Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cubes is much too similar to the first game to say anything significantly different about it as an experience. In fact, if both games were released as a single package, but with all the levels mixed together, it would be hard to tell which ones came from which game.
They aren’t bad games by any means, but they aren’t anything super special either.
Important Links
Little Helper Cafe: Sugar Cubes Brings More Bite-Sized Puzzle Charm To Xbox And PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/little-helper-cafe-sugar-cubes-brings-more-bite-sized-puzzle-charm-to-xbox-and-pc/
Buy from the Xbox Store, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/Little-Helper-Cafe-Sugar-Cubes-Xbox-Series/9P2PN4C7CFKC
Buy an Xbox One version – https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/little-helper-cafe-sugar-cubes-xbox-one/9mtlp3rx8xbb
