Pup Cup
Root Bear is one of those straightforward Playdate exclusives that you can pull out at a party to show people what the Playdate “is.” Crank the crank to fill a cup to the precise line and serve, ideally without going over or under. It went viral on TikTok! The bears make the best expressions whether you nail your pour or not, and it was inevitable that it would inspire Root-like games. First we had Toad’s Dragon Flagon as part of the Uncrank’d Game Jam (where it WON), but this one is from the creator of Off-Planet Dreams and the ART series, Ledbetter Games!
First debuting as a surprise demo on the first day of the 2024 Playdate Advent Calendar, Pup Cup was a great way to kick off the month. Instead of root beer, you’re filling cups with whipped cream, and instead of bears, you’re serving a line of sweet little doggies. The dogs don’t even get that sad if you overflow and blast whipped cream all over the place, but they will give you fewer tail wags, which is their only form of payment.
Each round is one minute long, and filling the cup with the desired amount of whipped cream gets you the most points. The cup fills at up to 5x speed depending on how far you tilt the crank, and there’s 90 degrees of crank angle that is the “serving zone.” So a round is one minute, only uses the crank, and will take every bit of your concentration. Be careful not to leave your crank in the serving angle and give a dog an almost-empty cup!
This new, complete version also has a “Borks” mode, which takes the normal cup filling gameplay and adds on-screen prompts, like push one direction on the D-pad to pet the dog when requested, or the other to shake its hand. Each successful prompt you nail while simultaneously trying to fill cups to the right height, as quickly as you can, awards you with additional time. It reminded me a bit of Direct Drive, where you had to rotate the crank at a specific speed while also fulfilling shouted requests by pushing the D-pad in a specific direction.
Classic mode and borks mode each have their own high score statistic saved on-device, but there is one thing that will be added in a future update that feels necessary now: an online leaderboard. Competing with people across the world has really extended the life of high-intensity, short-playtime games like HEXA, and kept people playing long after their hands start to cramp up. Root Bear also doesn’t have online leaderboards, but that would be a great way to help Pup Cup stand out and keep people coming back for more! (I’m at 124 wags on classic and 133 on borks mode, but I know I could do better! Post your own high scores in the comments below.)
There are a lot of good doggos here, and you might even see some friends from across the Playdate Cinematic Universe, if you’re lucky! Pup Cup is what we need right now: a reason to pull out our Playdate when we have a few spare minutes instead of doomscrolling on the internet. Give these good boys what they want: a very tall cup of whipped cream.
(Free demo released December 1, 2024, on Itch. Full game released February 4, 2025, on Catalog and Itch. Copy provided by developer.)