DEMO REVIEW: Adorable, Delectable ‘Cake Bash’ (Xbox One)

From developer High Tea Frog and publisher Coatsink comes an adorable, delectable new party game, Cake Bash. The free demo is available now as part of the Xbox Summer Game Fest. With up to four players, pick from one of eight gorgeous, vibrant pastries and get ready to rumble. Cake Bash features a series of dessert-themed competitive modes and mini-games where players generally compete to have the most points before time runs out. The four modes available in the demo include a strawberry throwing contest, a race to stick candies to your frosting, a cleverly named “Fork Knife” game where you dodge forks and knives, and a marshmallow roast-off.

The mini-game modes, the marshmallows and “Fork Knife,” are definitely distinct from the main competitive modes, but in a way not entirely easy to describe. Perhaps because if they were all just listed as mini-games you would never think twice about it? They offer slightly different mechanics or objectives than the candy and strawberry point rushes. They are all fun though and would certainly make for a nice mix-up to the Discord party game night.

The games may all sound simple, and they are. But the sheer chaos of the competitive modes as players sucker-punch one another to make them drop their strawberries or lose candies is hilarious. You play as these sweet, innocent looking pastries and then, all of a sudden, you are whacking each other with long, scraggly arms and picking up lollipops to smack one another around. It’s all very mundane cartoon violence though. The sweet, adorable nature of the characters is never whipped away by the competition.

The demo offers two stages to compete on, both containing hazards equally zany as the game’s entire concept, like a pigeon that lands on the field, pecks at you, and then poops everywhere to slow you down.  Everything is just so well animated and emotive and gorgeous.

With significantly more modes, minigames, and stages coming in the full release, as well as the ability to unlock alternate skins for your pastries, Cake Bash may be a sweet new addition to the party game lineup upon release later this year.