How to Play

Mai-Chan's Sweet Buns is a puzzle game about pastries. Our goal is to help Mai-Chan serve her sweet buns to customers at her bakery.


The 4 cards at the bottom of the screen represent the orders of Mai-Chan's customers. Each customer wants a specifc number of a single type of pastry. Our task is to find and select a line of pastries on the board that matches one of the cards. We can select vertical or horizontal lines. But it needs to be an uniterrupted line of the same pastry


We can only serve lines of pastries that perfectly match one of the cards. Some orders are easy to satisfy - like the x1 oders. Others may require some setup - like the x3 orders.

If we ever get stuck, we can look into the magical Star Box to activate special powers. Special powers cost stars. We can gain more stars by aligning 4 of the same pastry in a row.


We lose the game if we get stuck and run out of stars. But if we manage to serve all of the order cards in the deck, we win!


Making Of

This game was created as part of the A Game By Its Cover Jam 2018. The goal was to create a game based on of the cartridge covers from the Famicase Exhibition 2018. The cover to Mai-Chan's Sweet Buns was created by Louis Lloyd-Judson, the artist of the webcomic Apricot Cookies.


The game was written and designed by Krystian Majewski, an Independent Developer and the host of the Lazy Devs Academy video channel. The entire development process was livestreamed.

The music was composed by Sebastian Haßler, a music composer for film, TV and videogames. This was his first time working in chiptunes.

The game is written entirely in Pico-8.

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars
(418 total ratings)
AuthorKrystman
GenrePuzzle
Made withAdobe Photoshop, Aseprite, PICO-8
Tags8-Bit, Anime, Casual, Cute, PICO-8, Pixel Art, Retro, Short, Singleplayer
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Smartphone
AccessibilityColor-blind friendly, Subtitles

Development log

Comments

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Viewing most recent comments 3 to 42 of 83 · Next page · Last page
(+1)

My best infinite run, done over 5 days!

(+1)(-1)

I want mai chan's buns



/j

(+1)

I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING for a mobile port JISAJSJSJ <3 :p

So addicting! I already completed the game and now I just play in my free time

How cute…now I’m hungry! 

i cant read the url

Ah, thanks for letting me know. Should work now

(+1)

Just discovered this game and I'm addicted

(+1)(-2)

wow! so there is a GLARING mechanics issue that made it unplayable past maybe 2 rounds: you not being able to swap them like every other type of item matching game allows. I really suggest fixing this asap because otherwise this is just a game that is maybe playable for 3-5 minutes and then eventually you're stuck and that's that

Not quite how the game works, keep trying you'll figure it out. But if you REALLY do want a swap ability, you can unlock one in the shop.

(+2)

Yeah no, it's completely luck reliant. My first draw was 3,3,2,3 for orders and I got immediately stuck after first move. This game needs better board generation to ensure there are always possible moves.

just a really positive vibe in this simple and cute game 

(+2)

almost thought this meant something els

Just found this game, I'm in love with it! Super addictive, cute and delicious :D

such a cute game :<

(+1)

pov: it gives you x1, x1, x2 and x3 of cupcakes when you've just started the round and you barely have any on the board XD

(+1)

This was really cute and fun.

(+1)

Hi! I'm wanting to take games made for GBJam and make them for Gameboy! Would I be able to get the assets and build for this? If possible, the GB studio project too? This would be for my own personal use :) 

there is no gb studio project because this is a pico-8 game!

the assets and code can be seen with the pico-8 console / devkit, under the cc by-nc-sa license which allows derived works but not commercial use

(+2)

She´s so cute-

(+2)

This game is very cute and simple, but it can get a bit difficult, which is a fun challenge. Definitely loved playing it!

(+1)

Congrats on being the 9th best rated Casual Web Game!


Doesn't handle being on a different tab well, but other than that, pretty nice!

a  great game, with nice visuals and good mechanics! congratz! (and a BEAUTIFUL page)

(+1)

Was I the only one that accidentally found this game while looking through porn?

uhmm wha-

pretty fun but kinda hard 4 my peanut brain tbh

I found this game completely by accident browsing through this live playlist. I really love it!


This is the sweetest thing I've ever played!

We played it over on our channel, Retromantics! 

(+1)

If I had this on a portable game device I'd be stoke to play it, even here on the laptop it was fun but frustrating, a great experience for a game! 

(+2)

If I'd had this on the Gameboy as a kid, I would have sat there and played for hours straight.

(+1)

imagining a switch version one day with co-op...

man that would be good (but you do you, no worries about making any advancements here^^)


This is probably one of the best if not THE best pico 8 game I've played, ever. The sound, colors, design, it all works marvelously. Even without audio I can still hear the music playing, it's perfect.


If this were an app i would get it in a heartbeat (or as soon as i had money if it was paid)

(+3)

Thanks! I am thinking about doing a bigger version of it one day so I'm glad to hear you think this would work. 

(+1)

The name Mai-Chan gives me PTSD (DON'T LOOK INTO IT)

I heard about it. But also there are lots of Mai-Chan's around.

(+5)

This is the best game I have come across on Itch.io, no exaggeration. Totally addicting, adorable art and music. Gameplay is just challenging enough but not to the point that it feels impossible and frustrating. Excellent work!

Thank you for your kind words! I'm happy to hear you enjoy the game.

it would be good but just of the controls the controls are confusing for me and I can't click anything.

(1 edit) (+1)

Controls are explained in the game's description. It's not controlled by the mouse. You need to use the keyboard.

Thanks for sharing! I recorded myself playing this video game and uploaded the session on my gaming YouTube channel:

That's awesome! Thank you for playing my game!

(+1)

I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCHHHHHH hope u can make available as an ios app game ;; <3 i would buy it so fast hehe 

(+1)

Thank you! Might do one eventually. 

(+1)

Great game! I wish you could get coins from playing infinite mode.

(+3)

This game is really cute I wish I could download it into my computer

(+1)

very cute game.

(+1)

What's the multiplier for?

(+1)(-3)

It multiplies the coins.

(+4)

Bro this is legit the best pico-8 game I've ever seen :O

(+3)

So I made a mock-up for a remake of Mai-chan's Sweet Buns.

Not bad!

Is there anything missing or too much of?

(+1)

I find it curious you increased the resolution but kept the limited color palette. I would experiment with the colors. The buns are supposed to be vibrant and delicious!

That's sort of my style. I limit the palettes for sprites that use them.

I increased the resolution to take advantage of the mobile's detailed screen, so it's pixel art but without being too blocky.

Mai's portrait was ripped from the cartridge decal.

(+2)

(+1)

Hekk yeah! Mai looks different but in a good way. You made her yours.

imagine tho looks like a ds game.

(1 edit)

It does. I increased the width (portrait orientation) of the game from 128 pixels to 240 pixels for this mockup. If Krystman uses the graphics from the mockup nor lets me do the graphics for the remake, it would be great and it would be interesting to compare it to its original platform, in this case being the Pico-8.

okay, ty!

You are welcome!

The Game Boy Advance resolution is 240x160 (3:2 aspect ratio) pixels and the Nintendo DS resolution is 256x192 pixels on both of its screens (4:3 aspect ratio) by the way.

okay

(-1)

you do realise that mai chan is a character from an extremely disturbing ero-guro manga called mai chans daily life right?

(don't ask how i know)

(1 edit) (+1)

This is not the same Mai-chan.

Also, there's a singer apparently named Mai in a Hudson Soft film Bug-tte Honey: Megarom Shoujou Mai 4622 (1987).

very cute ^^

Viewing most recent comments 3 to 42 of 83 · Next page · Last page