In August 2016, the young indie studio Ghost Town Games, consisting of three people, landed an absolute hit. The video game Overcooked thrilled players across all known platforms and was even given a sequel, Overcooked 2, just two years later. It's no wonder that the chaos concept was also transferred to board games. At the beginning of this year, a new representative, Café Barista, was released, which is designed to make players sweat with lots of different orders. Find out how well the game plays and whether Overcooked fans can also have fun with it in this review.
Café Barista is located in a busy pedestrian zone. With a cozy atmosphere, excellent coffee and enthusiastic reviews on social media, it attracts numerous customers to the counter. For us baristas, however, this means a lot of work. Several orders have to be prepared at the same time and if you take too long, you get bad reviews. Only those who complete their orders on time prove themselves to be top-class baristas!
Collect ingredients, prepare drinks
In Café Barista, players receive orders that must be completed in order to receive good ratings. The game ends as soon as the order stack is empty or a person has failed to complete five or more orders. In the end, the person who has achieved the highest popularity wins.
Starting with the starting person, we take turns. Each turn is divided into five phases: expanding the counter, collecting ingredients, preparing orders, completing orders and ending the turn.
At the beginning of our turn we can decide to use our personal counter zu expandTo do this, we have to place three of our completed orders and then activate an improvement of our choice. This will allow us to collect ingredients more easily in the next phase.
At the collecting ingredients we move our barista figure 1 - 3 spaces. We can also use as many speed markers as we want to move one space forward per marker. We receive the ingredient printed on each space we enter once. If we have activated certain extensions, we can also receive more resources on a space.
With the collected ingredients we can then prepare ordersTo do this, we distribute the ingredients we have collected between our three cups. It is up to us how many ingredients we want to put in the cup. We can also decide not to fill a cup with ingredients or simply put ingredients back in stock. The aim is to fill the cups with the correct ingredients for each order that is on display so that it can be completed.
The better you do, the worse it is for the others
Let's complete an order, this goes into the area for good reviews next to our counter. If we have fulfilled a special order, we also receive a speed marker. Then the next two people in the row receive the same number of completed orders in the form of orders at their counter. This means that if you complete three orders, the next two players each receive three new orders. This can easily cause stress, because more orders also means more work.
As soon as all players have placed their new orders, the active player ends their turn. Their open orders are moved down one on the timeline and the time until they must be completed is reduced. If an order falls down, it is considered not fulfilled and is placed on the pile of negative ratings next to their personal counter. As consolation, they receive a speed token.
Once the game ends, all completed orders and each purchased expansion are added together as points. Each unfulfilled order gives a negative point.
Information about Café Barista
| Number of players: 2 – 4 Age: from 8 years Playing time: 30 minutes Difficulty: Family game Long-term motivation: medium Classification: Order management, field movement Author: Euijin Han Illustrations: Euijin Han, Siwon Hwang Publisher: Asmodee, Korea Boardgames Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2024 Language: German Cost: 34,99 Euro |
Conclusion
Café Barista does an excellent job of bringing the feeling of Overcooked to the table. Even though we don't play together and yell at each other due to lack of time, it's great fun to counteract the chaos yourself. Ultimately, you still end up arguing, especially when opponents are standing around in the way or rushing new orders at someone. Wonderful!
Since the game is not played in real time but is divided into individual turns, Café Barista is still quite relaxed to play, despite a lot of stress and discussions. The rules are simple and easy to understand. In addition, you "actually" always have a good overview of which ingredients you need. The "actually" comes from the fact that you tend to overlook orders because you prioritize others, but that is one of the attractions of Café Barista.
What's also really great is the beautiful material used in Café Barista. The individual ingredients are individual tokens that simply feel good in your hand. The fact that you then fill them into real mini cups enhances the feel of the game immensely.
In our opinion, the only downside is the replay value. Although you are confronted with new orders in every game, Café Barista somehow always feels the same. The game board on which we collect our ingredients plays a big role here. It has fixed ingredient fields. If you could randomly distribute the order of these at the start of a game or even re-distribute them during the game with an effect, there would be a lot more variety. It's a shame! There isn't much in the way of tactics here either. We receive orders at random and try to fulfill them as best as possible. Baristas from opposing players occasionally get in our way.
Nevertheless, if you let Café Barista rest for a few days, you'll want to play the game again. Because even if the games feel the same, the game is always great fun and is particularly suitable for a quick round on a relaxed evening.
| Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Korea Board Games, Café Barista, Family Game, Board Game, 2-4...* | 34,99 EUR |
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