Designed by: Jun Sasaki
Order Overload: Cafe is a memory game where players work individually but with a collective, co-operative goal: to serve all the customers!
The box contains seven level markers which are laid out in ascending order where everyone can see them. Everyone is dealt a salesperson chip – placed happy-side up, for now – and then the game begins. The starting player reads out a number of Order cards (number of players x the current level) and then deals them out to all the players. Ideally, at this point, everyone can remember all the orders – and on Level 1 that is probably true. But inevitably, the cafe is going to get busier…
The player’s goal is to complete – or ‘clear’ – each level by having a number of players empty their hand of order cards. To that end, when your turn arrives you must call out an order that you know (or suspect, or hope) another player has: you can’t complete your own order. If you’re successful, someone will shed that order card from their hand and play moves to the next player clockwise. If you’re unsuccessful, however, and nobody has the order you called, you turn your salesperson chip to it’s unhappy side: for the rest of this round you can answer orders, but you can no longer call them.
And so it goes, around the table with players hopefully calling orders that do exist and cards being shed. If the number of required players shed all their order cards, the level is complete and everyone moves on to the next level – with all salesperson chips turned happy-side up again. However if all players end up with the unhappy face before you complete level seven, the game is lost!
None, other than from your own fractured mind
You're involved all the time because you may be called on for orders, and you need to keep track of what orders have gone
The rules are easy as pie. The act of remembering is more Pandora's multi-dimensional gateaux.
It highly depends on how much you like the stress of recalling imaginary pastries.
2-6
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It's undeniably tough to succeed, and how much people enjoy - using that word guardedly - the challenge will vary wildly. The game rests its entire function and appeal on the inherent tension - and what pulls it through from merely an anxiety-inducing errand and into playful territory is the fact you're all working together and, one would hope, rooting for each other. Like almost every game from this publisher, it's appealingly presented and has an unpretentious quirkiness. But I suspect it could be their most divisive title, especially for aging farts like myself who can barely remember the reason they came into a room, let alone the fact someone's waiting for a green tea, cinnamon cake and iced coffee with no ice