Considering the grin-inducing name, it isn’t much of a surprise to discover that SOPA (Spanish for ‘soup’) weaves a humorous tale. Set in South America, we’re introduced to Miho – a polite and mild-mannered child with a fondness for his nana’s cooking. After being asked to grab a potato from the pantry, Miho catches a glimpse of a frog making off with the entire sack. Not any old frog, you understand, but a frog wearing a hat. Full of determination, Miho wastes no time in giving chase, haphazardly stumbling into a familiar yet fantastical world.
After fearlessly navigating raging water rapids, Miho finds himself in a black market run by dim-witted, and slightly shady, frogs. To retrieve his nana’s potato sack, he’s going to need to make friends and infiltrate the market’s underbelly. Thankfully, the sight of a human child within their shanty village isn’t unsettling for these knock-off Kermits.
What we have here is a short (3-4 hour) puzzle adventure that plays like a modern-day interpretation of a point ‘n clicker. You’ll need to talk to characters, gather items – which can be combined within the inventory – and work out where to use them. Said items are mostly arbitrary, which can often result in curveballs when it comes to their intended purpose. Thankfully I never had to resort to simply trying every item on every interactable object; puzzle solutions are warped but never totally illogical – even if some are a mere set-up for a joke.

The humour here translates well considering SOPA comes from a team of Latin America developers. Miho has a range of comical expressions – including a humorous blank stare upon meeting a talking dolphin for the first time – and the frogs within the bustling market all have something daft to share about their feeble lives. Miho isn’t animated flawlessly, often changing stances in the blink of an eye, but they are quite spritely and the supporting cast of humans each has their quirks during interactions, such as a dead-eyed glaze.
Other humans, you ask? After the black-market scene, Miho finds himself inside the belly of a giant fish, where they’re introduced to a handful of yet-to-be-digested humans. This hour-long (approx.) puzzle section is the ‘meat’ of SOPA, centred around formulating and executing an escape plan. After being trapped for so long, the fellow humans have started to go stir-crazy, such as a naval commander who believes they’re steering the fish, and a chap obsessed with fruitlessly repairing a pile of broken radios. There are around six characters to meet, along with a cow, and you’ll need to talk to each several times while ferrying items, solving puzzles and… making coffee. It’s impressive how much playtime the developers were able to cram into such a small play area.

It was around at this point that I started to wonder which wayward direction the story was going to go next, only for Miho to return to the black-market, only with one small new area to explore, a few more frogs to converse with, and a puzzle involving a chicken. Our likeable chum does at least get to return home a couple of times during his potato-seeking quest, taking items from his cosy Columbian homestead back into this dream-like world.
When it comes to imagination, SOPA certainly isn’t short of it. It does however appear to fall fowl of a small development budget, concluding quickly and relying on reusing locations. It succeeds at providing a fun, light-hearted and comical adventure – one that will likely have you laughing out loud, which is something I don’t say often – and it’s also reasonably good looking, even though guilty of using too much bloom lighting.
For all its merriment though, I was left wondering if younger gamers would be able to progress smoothly, as there’s no hint system and it is ‘pretty out there’ with some of its puzzle solutions. Its greatest strength could be a hinderance to those unable to think outside the box. Families who game together are almost certainly in for a fun time. If you don’t fall into that camp, you may be left wanting something heartier.
StudioBando’s SOPA – Tale of the Stolen Potato is out 7th Oct on Xbox Series, Xbox One and PC.