Understanding the hype: Coffee Rush

Amazing production value

Undeniably, that is the biggest selling point of Coffee Rush. It comes with 12 little acrylic cups (3 for each player) and a bunch of tiny, realistic ingredients that match the ones in the order cards and on the ingredient board. What most games would sell as separate deluxe resource packs is part of the core game here.

Now… is it necessary?

Some will argue that it’s all fluff. However, besides looking great on the table, these components add a physical limitation that perfectly emulates a few of the challenges a barista will face. And it makes a difference in gameplay.

At a certain point in the game, you will probably have 10–12 orders in front of you, as well as skills that allow you to pick up more ingredients at a time. But you still have only 3 cups to work with at a time. And once an ingredient is put in a cup, you can’t take it off and put it somewhere else — you wouldn’t do that to a client’s actual order, would you? If you make a mistake, you can either discard the entire contents of the cup or see if they can be used to fulfill a different order.

This production twist elevates and complements the otherwise simple core mechanics, which are: a grid movement to pick up ingredients, mixed with contracts in the form of orders and a sprinkle of engine building in the form of upgrades. Which brings us to our second topic.

Overly simple mechanics

Is this game simple, or is it too simple?

I guess you can say it depends. We all have different tastes and game knowledge levels.

This is purely a beginner-friendly game, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s meant to make newcomers want to play it, even if they are not familiar with a lot of modern tabletop games. Here is how it works:

• Your player board is split into 4 counters, and you begin the game with order cards on counters 1 and 2;
• On your turn, you may move your meeple 3 times on the ingredient board, each to an adjacent space;
• With each move, you pick up the ingredient that matches the space you just entered;
• After picking up all ingredients, you must choose to pour them in cups or discard them (you choose that for each individual ingredient);
• Once all ingredients are poured or discarded, check if any of your cups matches the exact contents of one of your orders to fulfill that order;
• The next 2 players in clockwise order both draw a card for each order you fulfilled, placing them on counter 1 of their player board;
• To finish your turn, slide all your cards down to the next counters.

There are some extra details that help you pick up more ingredients at a time, such as upgrades and Rush tokens, but this pretty much sums it up. Experienced gamers who want a bit more complexity might feel like the game itself is lacking — and for them, it might be —, or they might take this as their lightweight, pretty, puzzly game of choice. It’s all a matter of taste.

Feels like Overcooked

That, dear reader, is the only one of these statements I will wholeheartedly disagree with. And this is not to say one of them is not worthy of being compared to the other, because I personally love both. The experience, however, is completely different for a few key reasons.

For context, Overcooked is a video game series of cooperative, real-time cooking games. To beat each level, you need some dexterity, you need teamwork, and you’re racing against the clock to pick up ingredients, prepare and deliver orders. There are no turns. Everyone is playing at the same time, while the clock is running. Anxiety comes from not being fast enough to complete orders, from miscommunication within the team, or from messing up and delivering a wrong order.

Coffee Rush does involve some anxiety, too, but it comes mostly from knowing you will not be able to deliver all orders. It is a lot less chaotic and a lot more… Math, to be honest. You’re constantly counting your losses and planning your moves 2 or 3 turns ahead, so you know exactly how many orders you can fulfill and which ones you should give up on.

We can spend an entire post in the future talking about all the chaotic cooperative games that do feel a little bit like Overcooked, if that is something you’d be interested in reading. But this is not one of those games.