Mela flips the sign to closed, wipes down the counter, and locks the café door as the last customer shuffles out into a city where nobody else can sleep. Then she does the one thing no one else in this world can do: she goes home and dreams. That nightly ritual is the entire premise of HIPS N’ NOSES, an upcoming Steam title from PepperStones.Inc, who both developed and published it, that splits itself cleanly in two — a café management sim by day, a Vampire Survivors-style roguelike by night. The game is listed as “Coming Soon” on Steam, with no firm release date yet, but the concept alone is enough to make it worth watching.
The daytime half plays like a magical spin on Overcooked. Customers line up at the counter, each one missing some piece of their own past, and Mela has to brew drinks fast enough to keep the line moving while matching the right recipe to the right person. The twist is what’s actually in the cup. Ingredients like the game’s memory flower turn each drink into something closer to medicine than coffee, restoring a specific lost memory tied to the customer ordering it. It’s a clever bit of world-building dressed up as a serving mechanic — every ticket that comes through is a small act of repair, not just a transaction.
When the Café Closes, the Real Fight Begins
Once the doors shut, the game changes shape entirely. Mela sleeps, and the dream world that opens up is stocked with monsters swarming in waves, the kind of screen-filling chaos genre fans will recognize instantly from Vampire Survivors and its many imitators. The wrinkle here is who shows up in these dreams. Dream versions of the same customers Mela served hours earlier reappear once she’s asleep, and the game ties the daytime counter work directly to what she encounters once night falls.
That handoff runs both directions. Ingredients gathered while fighting through dreams unlock new recipes back at the café. It’s a design choice that recalls anyone who’s ever worked a slow shift at a coffee shop and built a strange, specific rapport with a regular — the kind of familiarity that outlasts the transaction itself. Here, that familiarity carries over into the night.
The Amnesia Economy
What keeps this from feeling like two unrelated genres bolted together is the reason both halves exist at all. The café can only ever treat symptoms. A cup of memory-flower coffee gives someone back a piece of what they lost, but it doesn’t touch whatever is causing an entire population to lose its memories in the first place. That’s what the dream combat is actually for. Every monster Mela fights at night is framed as a symptom of the same forgetting given claws and teeth, which makes the nightly runs feel less like a bonus minigame and more like the actual war the café can only patch around the edges of.
Call it the amnesia economy: every cup poured is a small transaction against forgetting, and every kill in a dream run is a strike against the same disease wearing a different face. That closed loop, where café progress and dream progress are both just different denominations of the same currency — memory — is what separates this from a cozy sim with combat stapled on for marketing appeal.
Familiar Bones, Different Currency
Hips N’ Noses isn’t the first game to split a player’s time between a grounded day job and a dangerous night shift. Hips N’ Noses puts its own spin on that structure by making sure something is always flowing between the two halves. Here, the currency is memory itself, and it never really changes form — a recipe’s power and a dream encounter both trace back to the same emotional thread, a single customer’s story being pieced back together one cup and one nightmare at a time.
The Risk of an Unproven Loop
None of this is guaranteed to land. Hips N’ Noses is listed on Steam as Coming Soon, with Early Access among its planned tags, which means the loop connecting café and dreams is still a promise rather than a proven system. If dream runs stop feeding back into café progression in a way players can actually feel, or if the memory-restoration angle turns into set dressing rather than a mechanic with teeth, the whole premise risks becoming exactly the gimmick it’s trying to avoid. Rock Paper Shotgun’s early look at the game already frames the daytime serving segment as an Overcooked-style rush, which is a good sign the café side has real mechanical weight, but the nighttime half still has to prove it’s more than a survivors-like reskin bolted onto a cute premise.
The reason to keep an eye on Hips N’ Noses isn’t that it mixes a barista sim with a survivors-like clone. Plenty of games mix genres for the sake of a pitch deck. It’s that PepperStones appears to have built the entire game around a single villain — forgetting itself — and made remembering the only weapon available against it. If that bet pays off, the coffee and the combat won’t feel like two separate games sharing a save file. They’ll feel like one long night’s work against the same disease.
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F.A.Q.
When does HIPS N’ NOSES come out?
HIPS N’ NOSES is listed as “Coming Soon” on Steam, with no firm release date announced yet. Players can look forward to an engaging blend of café management and roguelike combat when it eventually launches.
What type of game is HIPS N’ NOSES?
HIPS N’ NOSES is a unique mix of café management simulation and roguelike action. Players will experience managing a café during the day and battling monsters in dream sequences at night, combining elements of strategy, action, and storytelling.
Does HIPS N’ NOSES have multiplayer?
HIPS N’ NOSES is designed as a single-player experience, focusing on personal storytelling and gameplay. Players will engage in both café management and combat without the option for multiplayer or cooperative modes.
What platforms is HIPS N’ NOSES on?
HIPS N’ NOSES is set to release on PC via Steam. There has been no mention of console versions, though compatibility with Steam Deck is expected based on its PC release.
How much does HIPS N’ NOSES cost?
The price for HIPS N’ NOSES has not yet been announced since it is still listed as “Coming Soon” on Steam. Players should keep an eye on the store page for updates regarding the price closer to its release.
Does HIPS N’ NOSES have controller support?
Yes, HIPS N’ NOSES features full controller support, including compatibility with DualShock and DualSense controllers. This allows players to enjoy a seamless gaming experience whether they prefer keyboard and mouse or a gamepad.
BFG drafts articles with AI from our team’s research and verified store data — every piece is fact-checked and runs a multi-stage editorial review before publishing.
