Published by Ultimate Games S.A. and developed by TinyMindz, ‘Cakey’s Twisted Bakery’ is a survival horror game originally released on PC, in 2024. Cakey, Frostina and Candy Bane are now satisfying their sweet tooth on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PlayStation 4|5.

Welcome to Cakey’s Twisted Bakery, where human children are the secret ingredient to strange monsters’ delicious pastries. Find the recipe for survival to escape the bakery, and its sweet and scary staff! You are searching for your little brother, George, who has gone missing somewhere in the bakery. To rescue him, you must face the challenges of Cakey and his crumbly companions, Frostina and Candy Bane.

Gather ingredients to bake the perfect pie of destruction to use against the roaming bakery baddies. But be careful, as this will not be a walk in the park. One wrong step and you’ll find yourself as the next course in a monster meal. Hide and sneak your way through various dark rooms and find a way out. It’s time to bake or die at Cakey’s Twisted Bakery!

Cakey’s Twisted Bakery has you playing as an unnamed protagonist from a first-person perspective. The aim of the game is to escape this creepy establishment with your brother. To do this, you must bake pies of different flavours by collecting different ingredients, bring them back to the kitchen and cook them in the Cooker Jr., which won’t be simple as a monster will be lurking around.

Players will have a torch to help see their surroundings better, which does drain the battery but recharges on its own. The torch is especially handy to see the posters listing the ingredients of different pies, which are needed to be used as weapons against the monsters. The pies can be thrown at them to deplete their health, and certain pies will do more damage depending on which monster you’re up against and which pie they’re weakest against.

After taking down a monster, a key will drop and give you access to the next section, but that also unleashes the next monster. Having a monster constantly searching for you adds to the tension buildup, and you’ll feel their presence as the deep bass music gets louder, meaning they’re getting closer.

Hiding from them isn’t all that difficult as long as there is a hiding spot nearby, such as open boxes and under a table. Even purposely shining your torch at them from a hiding spot doesn’t seem to alert them either.

After playing for a while, players will learn the layout of the restaurant and know where all the hiding spots are, which quickly makes the game less challenging. There are difficulty settings, but players skilled enough can memorise the recipes and breeze through them.

Having to be out in the open and risk being caught to find and collect the ingredients does add to the tension, but it also becomes tedious since you can only grab one ingredient at a time as they’re scattered throughout the building.

Thankfully, you can bake multiple pies (one at a time) and stack them on the pie cooler across from the Cooker Jr., to give yourself plenty of ammo.

The design of the mascot monsters, Cakey, Frostina and Candy Bane, are indeed unsettling. They have a family-friendly appearance, but their damaged, decaying and deformed details make them unpleasant to look at in the best way, similar to the mascots of ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’. They each have different characteristics and behave slightly differently from each other to add a little to the challenge, but overall, don’t feel that much different as you hide, collect ingredients, and throw pies at them.

You still don’t want to be caught by them and be forced down their throats, which is a gruesome image before the screen goes black. Before that even happens, their high-pitched screams add to the tension and fear factor while speeding up your heartbeat, before chasing you around the restaurant until they catch you or you hide from them.

The restaurant itself has a creepy and unsettling atmosphere, again similar to ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’. Much like FNAF, it looks like it was once a family-friendly restaurant that’s been turned into a living nightmare. The overall design has a cartoony, ghoulish look and feel, and even though it might take a lot of inspiration from the FNAF games, it still manages to stand out on its own with its unique game mechanics.

There are some cutscenes to open the game, introduce the monsters and during one of the two endings. They don’t show a whole lot, but they do get the point across. The story is simple but also intriguing enough to keep you invested.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t go much deeper than it could’ve with the lack of cutscenes and storytelling. There are handwritten notes around the restaurant that give some insight, but are too vague to add much to the game’s lore. It’s a shame because the simple plot does have potential, so maybe it can be explored more in a possible sequel.

There isn’t a lot of music other than the title screen, when a monster is nearby, and during the climax, as the game relies mainly on the silence and occasional noises to keep players on edge. The music truly sets the tone of the overall game. The title screen music has heavy rock music mixed with haunting tunes; the deep bass music gets louder when a monster closes in, and the climax has a familiar jingle you might not hear the same way again.

The content and replay value may be lacking, but the game is only $14.95 AUD on Xbox and PlayStation and only $7.45 AUD on Steam, much cheaper than other games that offer way less. The game can be beaten in about two hours or even less if you know what you’re doing. The low price makes it a worthy purchase for those interested in playing a short, survival horror game.

The two endings offer some replay value, but the overall gameplay might be too forgiving for experienced gamers. The scare factor is definitely there, as players will be on edge trying to gather the ingredients and bake pies to escape a creepy restaurant, all while a monster is on the hunt for them. Cakey’s Twisted Bakery could use more time in the oven, but its simple mechanics, unique themes and creative ideas make it a nice bite-sized piece.

Written by: Sammy Hanson