It’s a world where nobody sleeps, except for your character, Mela, and Beri, the owner of the Hips N Noses cafe. Beri promised you a solution to get rid of sleep, but due to something called hollow disease, she forgot what it was. So, naturally, what you decide to do in this situation is to work in Beri’s cafe brewing coffee (or maybe concocting is a better word in this case) that helps customers affected by this weird amnesia to recover their short-term memories while you two figure out how to recover her older memories.
I first watched Hips N Noses‘ trailer during the Six One Indie summer showcase and the first aspect that caught my attention in the trailer was the super original art style, with its rough and thick black lines, flat shading, and manga-style character proportions. The style was reminiscent of a 90s or early 00s cartoon I just can’t quite pin down. I thought: fun, one more cafe management game!
Then Mela goes to bed and a Vampire Survivors-like scene starts taking place during her dreams. A cafe management game and a roguelike? I was even more intrigued.
A demo for the game came out at the end of July. I felt torn between playing it to its full extent or holding off so I can save some of it for release. I didn’t hit the end of the demo, begrudgingly quitting about 1h30 in.
Though in the beginning it’s a lot to take in – why exactly Mela is working at the cafe all of a sudden? Why does she start facing enemies in her sleep? How do I sweeten a coffee again? – it only took a couple of days to start getting into the groove. The info dump felt like a lot, but I get it, it’s a demo and you want to get the player to start playing as soon as possible. The game does ease you into its mechanics really well, and based on what I saw on the trailer, I probably only saw the tip of the metaphoric iceberg.
Cafe management in action. Your customers can order a specific beverage or ask for something based on attributes (e.g. sweet and warm)
I’m a broken record always praising well-written dialogue and solid characters, and I can say that Hips N Noses did not disappoint me on those two aspects. Mela and Beri’s banter is really funny and I’m all for Mela’s deadpan vibe – she might go along with the plot, but not without some resistance and eye rolls. Plus the game doesn’t take itself seriously, like when Mela questions why the name of the cafe is Hips N Noses. It feels like breaking the fourth wall as I’m sure it’s every player’s first question. If you were wondering about it, in this Reddit thread the developer says that the name is a play on the name of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.
Now to the Vampire Survivors-inspired roguelike gameplay. During the day, you run the cafe and purchase ingredients, not very different from a typical management game. Once you close shop and go to sleep, a battle starts in your dreams.
Hordes of monsters show up, and you tackle them with a pillow that dream-version-Beri gave to you. The more monsters you defeat, the more you level up and upgrade to more effective weapons. Special flowers start appearing on the “battle field” and you need to collect them.
These flowers are the special ingredient that you brew with the coffee drinks that allow customers to recover their memories and keep people coming for more (after all, who would be interested in bitter coffee in a world without sleep? – game’s words not mine).
The last thing I want to mention about the gameplay is how you get slowly introduced to the cast of characters and how they become your support. Think the shop owner that sells you supplies for the cafe, or the mechanic who helps you with coffee machines and shop customization. I liked how integrated they felt into the story from the get-go. They’re not just present at their shops during opening hours, they also come to Hips N Noses to grab a drink and they have dream-versions that help you fight the horde of monsters with their specific weapon and buffs.
As of now, the game has no set release date, though the demo felt very solid (I personally found no bugs, just a typo) so I’m hoping to hear soon about when it’s coming out!
Hips N Noses is being developed and published by PepperStones Inc. The demo is still available at the moment of posting this! Images in this post were either sourced from the Steam store page or screenshots taken by me.
-Luna
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