The dilapidated, war-torn virtual landscapes of Call of Duty seem like the most unlikely of places for the foundations of a game like Coffence to have been laid, however, great ideas can spring from anywhere, and they usually spring forth out of necessity.

In the case of the developers over at Sweet Bandits Studio, that necessity was to try something different. “I was tired of modeling steps” was the reply of one of the studio’s co-founders, when asked why they would leave a stable position, working on the largest gaming franchise in the world in order to strike out on their own. “It’s important work, but I didn’t want my team to do it.”

That need to do something completely different led Charles Dufour, Eric Guigue, and Philippe Pelletier-Baribault to break away and create their own start-up studio: Sweet Bandits Studios.

Their first project is about as far away from the war genre as one can get – an easy to get into, but surprisingly deep fighting title called Coffence.

There are no life bars, no super moves, EX combos, crazy meters, or any of the other overly complicated systems that have permeated the fighting game genre in Coffence. Instead two fighters furiously try to knock coffee out of each others’ coffee cups. First relieve their opponent of their coffee is the winner.

Mechanically, Coffence crosses the mechanics of fighting games, with those of a twin-stick shooter. Players move their characters with the left-stick, while aiming with the right. Attacks turn your coffee mug into a sort of offensive yo-yo – launching your mug at your opponent to try and hit their mug, and thus, knocking their coffee out into the air. From there it’s a scramble to try and snag that flying coffee into your mug, lest your opponent gets to it first and recovers the precious beverage.

It’s one of those titles that sounds a bit out there when it’s first described to you, however, once you sit down with the game, it doesn’t take long for the brilliance of Coffence’s gameplay to sink in.

We were able to check out some two-player Coffence battles while we were at EVO 2017 last week, however, up to four players will be able to participate in the caffeine induced mayhem.

We walked away extremely excited and energized by what we saw of Coffence. (And we hadn’t even had any coffee!) The simplicity of the design is perfect for hooking players in, and letting them get to the fun very quickly, while the intelligence of the design showcases a lot of room for depth once you get into the higher levels of play.

Be sure to check out our interview and gameplay footage with Eric Guigue, one of the game’s artists, as well as the Co-Founder of Sweet Bandits Studio.

You can check out Coffence for yourself right now on Steam Early Access.