A Balanced Brew
A downloadable game
A Unicycle game for coffee lovers
It's Saturday morning, 10:30am, and *you haven't had your coffee yet*. Your need for caffeine is undeniable, there's not a bean in the house, and you really, *really* hate walking. That coffee cart can't be too far away, right?
Your eyes find your trusty unicycle across the room. Let's do this.
"A Balanced Brew" is a challenging but charming tale of one person's unicycle-mounted quest for a good coffee, across improbably treacherous terrain.
Features
- Original crank-driven unicycle gameplay, made for the PlayDate!
- The most advanced unicycle-coffee-run simulation released on the platform to date!
- 5 increasingly-caffinated difficulty levels, for a smooth yet full-bodied challenge that lingers nicely on the palate!
- 80 levels across 4 picturesque locales, filled with devious obstacles!
- 3 additional game modes for extra challenge: Gauntlet, Return Trip, and Daily Grind!
- A soothing soundtrack to keep you calm on your quest!
- Unlimited level skips, don't be afraid to use them! you can come back at any time and finish the level later
- For even more challenge, drink 4 espressos before playing to unlock "jitters mode"! (PSA: probably don't, though. Excess caffeine consumption may cause irritability, mania, insomnia, and an uncomfortably full bladder.)
- State-of-the-art monochrome facial hair simulation!
Awards
- Game of the Year Nominee - The 2022 Playdate Community Awards
- Best Action Game Winner - The 2022 Playdate Community Awards
- Outstanding use of the Crank Nominee - The 2022 Playdate Community Awards
Testimonials
- "This is the most Melbourne game imaginable, I love it."
- "...I'm pretty sure I've seen this guy getting coffee in Brunswick."
- "This game perpetuates tired unicyclist stereotypes, and doesn't do my moustache justice at all!"
Controls
- Crank to move
- B to bring up pause menu in level, you can skip or restart levels from this menu
Play Tips
Use the crank to pedal in either direction.
Mind your center of balance, and try pedaling backwards to tip yourself slightly toward your direction of travel.
Avoid crowds, pick your moment when crossing the street, and be careful of hazards such as mud or oil that threaten the unwary unicyclist!
Sound track
OST by Miles O'Connell available on Bandcamp
How to Install
This game can be side loaded through the Panic Playdate website
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $8 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- A Balanced Brew OSTOct 18, 2022
- Another PatchSep 21, 2022
- PatchSep 14, 2022
- Bug :(Sep 12, 2022
- New UpdateSep 07, 2022
- Patch 1.0.5Aug 08, 2022
- A Balanced Brew is now avaliable!Jul 31, 2022
Comments
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Damn crosswalks. They switch really quickly and it's so hard to get going on time.
Please I bought Balances Brew from Catalog.Is it possible to get the .pdx file??Thank you.
Sure, send me an email with a screen shot of your receipt / proof of purchase and I’ll send you an itch key so you can download the .pdx file
Contact@robertcurry.xyz
Hello, Not sure if a bug, but I had a streak for I think 224 days, but it resets with the new year and only shows max 222 days and I lost the streak
oh no I’m sorry. I’ll have a look into that and see if I can fix it.
You know what? I am not even mad! :D I like the idea counting from the new year. Its an arbitrary number, but a nice motivation to keep the brick charged and using it daily :)
Howdy,
Just wanted to start by thanking you for making this game. It has brought me more joy than any other video game experience this year by rather a large margin.
I absolutely love the feeling of the gameplay. This feels like the very thing the playdate was made for!
The art and music are fantastic, the sprites are adorable, and the level design is superb. Wonderfully challenging yet reasonable.
Return trip and gauntlet make for great additional challenges after completing the main game.
Having beat most of the content I now find myself coming back for the daily grind more than almost anything else on the system. I love how devilishly mean they are.
My only suggestion would be to add 'return trip' as a difficulty option to the daily grind, just as a small way to get a little more out of it.
Lastly, as a weird coffee person, I appreciate the moral of the story being that I am a hipster and am going to hell :)
For me as of now hands down best game, everything from menu, game modes and game play is polished.
The addition of daily grind keeps me busy every day, looking forward for another one, and I like the return mode too. Are there other unlockables hidden?
Thanks so much :) I’m really glad you enjoyed it! There’s no other game modes or anything like that but there is a little easter egg hidden in there. Look at the bottom of the credits to find it!
Neat! I remember that one from the dev forum :)
Will there be a level editor too?
if there’s enough interest I’ll polish it up a bit but if you really want to you can give it a try now with: up, down, left, right, up, down, left, right, a, b It’s a little janky in places but it does the job.
wow! and there is still room for another menu item! :D it reboots the playdate on the recent firmware. But I think there are platny levels to play from, and man the daily grind! keeps me returning every morning
I feel like this game completely botches its own marketing as a fun playdate crank unicycle game by only having a coffee related cover image and title. It’s a a fantastic game I almost never clicked on because all I knew about it was something coffee related.
No game has made me cackle in delight whilst dying like this game has. Truly a wondeful thing.
I know its maybe bad form to write this on Itch but could you please submit this game for Catalog? Would love to buy it there when given the choice.
I’m working on it!
Without a doubt my favorite game on playdate, great job !
🥰
I absolutely love this game. Worth every penny, spent ages on this. Thank you !!
One of the best Playdate games. I keep coming back to it.
This is awesome 🙌 thank you so much
Amazing game !!!! Well worth the 8 bucks......
could definitely see this as a Season 2 game !!!!!
Thank you ☺️
Just realized the new content! AHHH I'm not done with Hell yet but had fun in the Jungle <3
Amazing! I’m loving your videos :D
This game is fantastic! By far my favorite game on the Playdate. Some of the levels sure do get tricky. Seriously worth every penny in the fun it offers.
Loving this game! Sorry for waiting to see if the price point was worth it. It surely is!
Can you please explain the QR function?
Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you’re enjoying the game 😊
The QR code takes you to a site where you can share your score for the daily grind, it’s similar to how games like Wordle allow you to share your score.
There’s currently a thread in the play date squad discord where we’ve been sharing them.
Thanks!
Look cool, but price seems a bit steep, so will wait for a sale to get it.
love this game - challenging, funny, super well done, many levels, great graphics and anything relating to coffe has my thumbs up :)
I'm currently having an issue where I can't use/ find the level skip option. Is this a known issue? I may try side loading the file again.
Weird, There was an issue when skipping levels would crash the game.
While in a story mode level, either open the system menu or press ‘b’ to bring up the in game menu and you should see the option to skip. If you don’t, let me know.
Thank you for the reply! I'll try again and see if it's functioning for me. It is kind of a fun challenge right now having to do each level in order and get good.
Such a clever and charming game for the Playdate. Thank you for making this!
Is there a tips post about the various terrains anywhere? I was having fun initially, but now that I’m at level 1-13 I’m just getting frustrated despite dropping the difficulty down all the way 😑
Ah yeah that level is very tricky. Best advice I can give you is while going up the muddy part try to just go slow and keep your self a vertical as possible, maybe even leaning a little backwards.
But I very much encourage people to skip levels before they get frustrated! There’s no penalty and you can come back and finish the level later.
Good advice, thank you! I didn’t realize there was a glossary too which helps, and I appreciate the option to skip levels! I wanted to jump into the daily grind but quickly discovered I need to play through the other stages first 😅
Awesome game, having a blast with it! Would it be possible to add the name of the level and the difficulty on the death and level completion screen? This way when I take a screenshot to share my score it has this information on it
That’s a great idea! Will add it in the next update.
My favorite Playdate game so far! Reminded me of Unicycle Hero, but the physics feel more polished and it's just so much fun playing it with the crank and being able to go faster or slower based on the situation. Superb! :)
this game is so fun! Are there plans for more level packs or a way to make levels?
Yes! I’m actually working on that right now. I’ve got 40 new levels coming and a daily mode with a randomly generated level each day. Should be releasing it with in the next two weeks.
yesss!!!! Literally new fav game on playdate
It’s out now!!
what what!
This game is amazing and might be my new sideloaded #1 favorite!
Love the game!
It would be super cool if there was a way to see how much of a level you’ve completed when you fall over. One way you could do this is by extending the X axis of the balance graph as if there were data points for the entire level. Alternatively, printing the % completed would work too.
Love the idea! I’ll see if I can add it to the next update. No promises though :P
My favourite game on the Playdate so far! Great use of the crank.
Thank you so much!
Love the game! Only issue I had was around level 12 or 13 the music started dropping out every other run. It stopped doing it around level 17.
I am really looking forward to your game and quite happy I can finally give you a pre-order!
Looks promising. Perhaps the game title could use some work.
I think the title is great, but still gave you an upvote as no one should be downvoted for a valid opinion.
the title is perfect
Thanks for the feedback, I replied in the reddit thread too but I'm going to copy my answer here too because I agree with WDKtheV.
"I wanted something that combined the unicycle part with the coffee part. 'a balanced brew' is a little awkward but I like that it combines these things together."
Hey! Is there any email we can use to contact you?
Thank you very much!