This is a unique air hockey inspired game. The gameplay is fun. The characters are amusing. It is apparent there is much replay value to this game.
The gameplay is great. Each opponent you face off against has a special shot they perform once powered up. The opponents you face in the beginning don't have very tricky shots but the shots of later opponents are very intense and hard to combat. You can play a variety of modes against each opponent. There is a simple duel mode in which you battle your opponent up to a certain amount of points. There is also a bet mode in which you can bet up to a set number of coins on the match. A survival mode is also available where one strike against you results in the game being over.
The unlock system adds complexity to the game. Mallets and pucks of varying abilities are able to be unlocked. In fact you can unlock the mallets your opponents use to unlock their shots. There is also a leveling system in which you unlock different coin boosts for the particular modes.
A couple minors gripes I have are the lack of multiplayer and some annoying quirks of the characters. When you score on characters they perform the same action upon every point you win against them. So their catchphrases can get old quickly. However, you can just play a different character upon getting too annoyed.
Overall this game surprised me with how fun it is and I feel I will be sinking many hours into it.

Air hockey in an alien cantina with a gazillion levelups and powerups... nice game but I can't shake the feeling it's better played on a tablet with a touch interface instead of on pc with a mouse.

EDIT: After playing it for quite a while well... it's really grindy if you want to max everything out but to actually finish the main game it isn't too bad if you find the underlying mechanics fun which I do. It's really satisfying to achieve perfection vs the diverse oponents and their various playstiles if you like the basic air hockey gameplay.

Just be sure to play it as little or as much as you want and don't go overboard and it's a really enjoyable experience.

Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe is a great animated 3D air hockey game. The game is controlled via the computer’s mouse. You have to hit a hockey puck with the aim to knock the hockey puck past the opponent’s site (and to get the puck when the opponent knocks it to you). In Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe you have a modern, colorfull design, 13 opponents on 5 floors (with different looking rooms), more than 40 gadgets and equipment and and and. This game is perfect if you just want to play a bit alone. The game saves itself so you have nothing to do when you want to quit the game. You can level your own character (about 200 levels!) and there are over 350 missions and 120 mini quests you can do. If you really want to collect all achievements and to do all quests you can spend much time on that game. I would buy it always again.

I used to play Shufflepuck Cafe on the Atari ST, back in the 1980's. This is a lovely recreation, with loads of new features to explain exactly why you're playing shufflepuck against a motley assortment of aliens and robots.

An OK little game to remember the original game from the nineties with some flaws that cannot be overlooked.

Clearly designed originally as a free-to-play (an insame amount of challenges, in-game achievements requiring 50+ hours of gameplay and more than a thousand matches to win, different sort of currencies, XP, slot machine, etc...), these mechanisms only strenghten the impression of a lack of content.

Which is sad, because the grinding slowly kills a game that had good efforts put into it (there's decent writing, overall good controls, balanced AI). This should be a lesson to game designers: forcing the player to put more hours than he normally would have only makes him/her notice the little things that are wrong (repetitive sound design, aberrant mallet behaviour on some occasions, too many menus...).

If you are bent on 100%ing games, just don't buy this one, the time you will have to spend is not worth it. For the others who might enjoy a few arcade air hockey matches, you can spend a few bucks when the game is on sale.

******UPDATED******
After more hours into the game and all floors unlocked I have to say the game becones unfair with ai using their powers as much as they like and to get any thing is a major grind. I am talking about Star Wars Force Collection grind, I would hate to see the f2p mobile version. Sadly I can not recommend due to those things.

Do you like pong? Do you like Star Wars? If you answered yes to both then this game is for you! Though not set in the Star Wars universe the universe you are in is very Star Warsy even down to the cantina music. It's got a cute charm to it.

Before you dive into the trenches of this game be warned first, this was originally a phone game that was free to play with in app purchases. No no, there are no IAP here, you buy the game once and that's it, but you can tell because you have to grind and grind and grind to get anything.

The graphics really surprised me knowing that this is a mobile game, though it could use a little AA, it's very pleasing to the eyes. The music is hit or miss after hours of grinding your better off playing your own. The matches are short and sweet lasting only a minute or so but they are fun. You can unlock different power ups and upgrade your paddles and puck slightly. The only thing missing from this game is online play, that would be a blast to play your buddy in a pong like game.

Normally being a fan of more action-like games or even shooters, I am surprised of how much this game draws me in. The characters are interesting and way more multidimensional than characters in other games that are supposed to be "main heroes", the gameplay itself is fluid, fun, and there are a lot of things to earn and rewards to get that will keep you going.

I can't recommend this game enough and I am surprised how much I like it, given how it was a "curiosity-buy". I am not disappointed :)

Buy this.

It's a fun game unless you actually want to progress in and eventually complete the story - in which case you're going to need a metric ton of the in-game "credz" tokens to buy 19 "biography entries" for every single one of the 13 opponent characters. That's 247 biography entries. Which is a LOT of credz. Which can only be reliably received by replaying the same opponents over and over and over and over ... you get the picture. The higher ranked the opponent, the more credz their entries cost. To unlock all 19 entries for one of the 3 low ranked opponents is over 6k credz. For one of the 3 high ranked opponents is about 36k credz. A "6-0" Gold Medal victory in a Duel against one of the high ranked opponents would net you about 1.3k credz, a bit more if you're lucky with credz drops during the match, and a bit more on top if you have spent thousands of credz on upgrading your mallet and puck to give you 1(!) credz with every strike/wall bounce respectively (level up enough and this is doubled to 2 creds per strike/wall bounce, but I have a feeling most people will drop the game way before that point.) The rest of the math is left as an exercise for the reader.

Sufflepuck Cantina is a cute little casual game about air hockey simulation, ideal for playing in small doses. What it does it does perfectly with a smooth mouse response and clear and intuitive controls.

Long story short, you play as an astronaut stranded in a distant planet inhabited by a bunch of freaks obsessed with air hockey. In order to get them help you to fix your broken spaceship you need to make youself a name as an air jockey player and beat (a looot of times) the 13 opponents. You start with a basic mallet and puck and the 3 beginner opponents, and you must grind your way up to the rest of them, their special mallets and pucks and some other unblockables, such as concept art, pieces of background for the diffferent characters, etc. Each enemy has their own mallet and puck and a special move, but the concept of the game is always the same.

Some people have said it resembles Star Wars Tatooine cantina aesthetics, and it does indeed. There's even a "Twi'lek" girl and a guy cosplayed as Han Solo, and every alien is very Star Warsy, so if you like the saga then you'll probably find Sufflepuck Cantina attractive to the eye. Most defining trait is the grinding, which many people have complained about; there's no ingame purchases inherited from its former app game nature, yet you will need tons of ingame currency to buy everything, from access to more challenging enemies to new mallets and its upgrades. As there are only 13 enemies and the only mechanics in the game are the short, intense air hockey matches (no other minigames included), this may get repetitive after a while. You can, however, buy your classic coin doubler upgrade, which I recommend you to do first thing (there are a couple upgrades for the puck to give you money when it hits the table and the mallet).

Also the lack of multiplayer really damages a game like this one, which could use it to add some replayability and extra fun. However, the developers are considering to add it in the future if they get funding, and you can read about it in the Steam forums. I had this game on a bundle so I will definitely be investing a couple bucks :p

+ Cute design and characters
+ Addictive and tons of unlockable content
+ Polished and responsive controls and puck behavior

+/- Some people may find the grinding annoying, while others (like me) may find it catchy

- The concept gets repetitive quickly
- No multiplayer (although it could have it eventually)
- Some will find 10€ is a bit pricey due to lack of variety

After playing for 6 or 7 hours I say it's a good game, fun and with a fair amount of content, but it can get old quickly. If, like me, you are a sucker for casual games and achievement hunting, you will sure enjoy it. If you are looking for a more hardcore game, I would advice to avoid this one, specially at full price, as some will consider it to be a bit too much for what it offers; I had it in a bundle though, so I am more than happy with the value. I totally recommed it if you get it on sale and enjoy some good old casual gaming.

I puchased this game over a year ago, and played it a lot on my DK2. After getting my new headset I came back to it only to find the steam version doesn't work in VR, and I need to buy it again on the Oculus Store to play it. Would appriciate an Oculus Store key to play again, as it stands now, I am going to give thumbs down.