

Set in an intergalactic bar that looks strangely familiar to a cantina from a 1977 movie about wars that take place among the stars (with a riff on the iconic music to match), the game presents references to various works of science-fiction with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek.Įach opponent that you can challenge in the cantina is more than just someone that you face off against with pucks and mallets: each of them has a backstory that unfolds episodically. The gameplay of Shufflepuck Cantina - intuitive, fun, and fast-paced as it is - would prove relatively boring after awhile if it weren't for the excellent graphics, storyline, and missions that make up the game's fictional world. While annoying to deal with at first, these strikes help keep the game challenging, and break up the tedium of volleying a puck back and forth in what is ultimately a reprise of the first commercially successful video game. Score enough points and you win the match.Įach opponent has a special 'strike', which will send the puck at you in a signature style - curved shots, corkscrews, and teleporting pucks are all possible. For those who haven't, a tutorial presents the finer points of the game in an easy-to-follow fashion.Ī puck is placed in the middle of a table, and you strike it with your mallet to send it past your opponent's mallet to score a point.

The basic gameplay of Shufflepuck Cantina will be immediately familiar to anyone who has dabbled in the game of air hockey before. Pucker upĪt its core, Shufflepuck Cantina is a homage to the 1989 Macintosh game Shufflepuck Café, in which you had to compete in a sci-fi version of Pong using an air hockey table as a battlefield.

Shufflepuck Cantina extends this simple pleasure to characters from a galaxy far, far away. Whether this occurs in a game of polo or a round of croquet, the excitement of sending an inanimate object hurtling into your opponent's face is a pleasure that can be enjoyed by anyone. Few things in life are as satisfying as smacking something with a mallet.
