During GDC last year, I sat down with former Halfbrick designer turned solo developer Layton Hawkes to check out his then-upcoming logic puzzler Puzzlepops! ($1.99). The game was filled with devilishly challenging mechanics and a TON of puzzles to solve, but I was worried that the overly-used candy theme might scare people off before they had a chance to see what an ingenious game it was. Well, I was wrong. Puzzlepops! launched a couple of months later to massive critical acclaim from puzzle fans, and did well enough that in October Hawkes released a free Halloween-themed spinoff called Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat (Free). The candy theme was the right way to go. Anyway, we hadn’t heard much from Hawkes since then but today we’ve received word on his newest game which trades in the candy for camping and the 2D visuals for 3D, but retains that same stellar puzzle design as his first two games. It’s called Campfire Cooking and you can get an oh so brief taste of it in the following teaser trailer.
Yeah, that was quick. Maybe watch it again, or even three times. You can see that Campfire Cooking will have the same brain-tugging challenges as Layton’s first two games, and aesthetically I really like the whole campfire theme and enjoy the bump up in graphics. Hawkes also states that Campfire Cooking is “larger in almost every way than my previous solo projects" and there’s actually an element of story involved as you’ll get to meet the folks surrounding the campfire as they chit chat about camping life. While no specific release date was mentioned, we do know Campfire Cooking is coming to iOS and Steam at some point in October so we’ll let you know when it hits.
