Another title featured with The Indie Houses, Teacup is a game developed by Smarto Club. They are a very small team that aims to make beautiful games for people who want to lose themselves in a digital world.
The beginning animation is really cute, with a lovely art style, cheerful music, and has a somewhat relatable story. Teacup is a sweet little frog who goes on an adventure for tea, because she has run out. She takes her journal and goes on an adventure to find herbs that she can use to make tea for her tea party! Along the way, she runs into interesting characters, like a badger, a salamander and more. They are all very well designed and have fun personalities.
The playstyle is very simple, and the game art style is very nice, a pixelated style but not the usual type. Rather, a noise-filled background, with distinct characters in the foreground. It fits well for the game and gives a lo-fi atmosphere to the game. Teacup walks very slowly through the world, chatting to all the fun characters she bumps into. Sometimes, they will give her a task to do. For example, speaking to the badger gave me a ‘fit the pieces in the box’ puzzle. The game is kind and accessible by offering hints to help you get through the puzzles if you get stuck, which I really appreciated as someone who is bad at puzzles!
I did come across a spelling error throughout the game, and overall the demo felt like it didn’t showcase enough for me to want to buy it. It felt rather slow playing it, and overall I’m not sure if this is the game for me. However, Teacup was really sweet and I look forward to seeing where it goes in the future.
There are a ton of games being featured with The Indie Houses. To keep up on all of them, be sure to check out the Indie Game Collective here!
