A delightfully charming game that layers BMX bike tricks with a cozy postal job — and an anthropomorphic tanuki
This project recieved a coveted SideQuesting TEAM CHOICE AWARD at PAX East 2025!
Tanuki: Pon’s Summer is built around layers of charm. It’s a sort of action game that stars a bike-riding tanuki as its first layer, a postal job that has us running around a town doing favors as its second layer, and shrine decorating as its third layer. The latest demo of the game focuses on the first two aspects, showing off just how goofy and lovely the game is turning out to be.
As the demo (at PAX East) kicks off we awaken as Pon, the town’s tanuki guardian, and must make our way around helping others. Pon’s preferred mode of travel is a bike, and riding a bike in a video game immediately makes us want to do tricks. Thankfully, Pon is adept to BMX-style biking, as he’s able to do jumps, flips, tricks, and even ride rails around the town. Our first task is to get to the post office and start working, and while we can take a dedicated path there it’s much more fun figuring out how to bump and jump our way across the roofs of houses for shortcut.
An interesting aspect about the game is that Pon doesn’t speak. Denkiworks, the developers, want to make sure that the actual animal deity side of the character shines through, and so his communication is strictly through hand motions and facial responses. There are plenty of conversations early in the demo that show off the work that the team put into animating; Pon’s reactions are highly amusing. When he agrees or disagrees, when he accepts a task, when he’s being thoughtful or inquisitive — all of these and more are reflected in a cartoon-like demeanor, and it’s pure joy.
Upon recieving our new gig at the post, we need to select the packages that we want to distribute around town. This is done in a puzzle-like Tetris packing minigame, as we need to fit and rotate as much as possible into our posession. Funnily enough, all of the boxes layer on top of one another in our bike’s basket, creating a tower that can sometimes obsctruct the animations that Pon gives out.
The demo has two package delivery missions, and they’re as unique as possible.
The first mission has us delivering to a retired Sumo a package of old VHS tapes. This tapes contain his glory years of matches, and so he become instantly inspired enough to want to teach us how to sumo wrestle. This kicks off a minigame of Pon learning when to stomp, slap, push and dodge before throwing us into a short fight. The second package we deliver is to the town’s juice pub, where the owner is protecting his current streak of perfect customer days. Unfortunately his staff is out preparing for a fewtial, so it’s up to us to pour the drinks to the pub’s visitors. This plays out in a minigame in which we have to match the ratio of the head and liquid of a juice to a customer’s request, and it’s an oddly satisfying feeling when the result is at or near perfect.
If the 15 minute demo is an accurate slice of the full game, then Tanuki: Pon’s Summer is shaping up to be a surprise little hit that could make a star out of a raccoon dog.
SideQuesting had a chance to play the game at PAX East. This video first appeared on The SideQuest LIVE for May 9, 2025.
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