Hungry? It's time to play Cube Café!

Cube Café is a time management game in the genre of Diner Dash, Sally's Spa, Ninja Kitchen, and Cake Mania, where customers come in, and you perform a series of quick moves to fulfill their orders.

On traditional platforms, these moves are done with mouse clicks, but we thought this sort of game would be an excellent fit for the Sifteo cubes because of the physical nature of the interaction.

So we coded up a prototype, and after going through several user interface possibilities, we've come up with a system that is not only satisfying and fun, but is also versatile enough to really offer a pretty complex time management experience with only a few cubes.

NEW! Here's a video showing the new features of the game:

Here's the original video of the game in action, showing the game in more detail:

So where do we go from here?

This game is an entrant in the Sifteo Cubes Experimental Gameplay Competition.

Design Document
This describes the current state of the Cube Café design, and comments on the elements that can still be improved, the successes, and other thoughts on development to date.

Right now, the game is fun to play, and it's been playtested with both adults and kids. People seem to enjoy Cube Café, and we feel that the satisfying click-to-move mechanic really highlights the unique features of the Sifteo platform, making it a strong candidate for players.

Want to try it out?

If you have some Sifteo cubes, and you're enrolled in the Sifteo developer program, you can download and try the game yourself!

Note: The current version has not been level-balanced, so you may want to try version 2 instead of version 3 if you are just looking to enjoy the game.

Download Current Version

You can also download previous versions:

Version 6 (current)
New levels and level balancing.
New feature: you can now filet fish. You use the chopping board to filet fish, in the same manner as with the lettuce and tomatoes.
New tutorials.
New food items include bun-less combinations of burgers and veggies to make it easier to build deluxe burgers.
Minor bug fixes.
Version 5
New tutorial system! Now there are several just-in-time tutorials dropping on each of the beginning levels.
New tutorial presentation. Now, instead of selecting tutorials from the main menu, it prompts you if you want to see the tutorial for the given level.
New kitchen station: chopping board. Now, you can chop tomatoes and lettuce directly instead of putting them on a cutting board and have them magically chop themselves...
New kitchen graphics and arrangement.
Version 4
Some balancing work done. May still be a few rough spots in later levels.
Added pizza tutorial.
Version 3
You now have to collect enough tips to pass a level.
Customers get angry, and leave smaller tips if you take too long.
Note: Customer patience has not been balanced yet. Any given level may be really easy or really hard!
Version 2
Now animates foods moving from cube to cube.
Improved tutorial.
Fixed embarrassing typo in instructions.
Can now exit levels by pressing button on base station.
Version 1
Initial release.