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The aroma, the flavour, the noise. All part of your everyday life working as a barista in a coffee shop. Until, one day, you quit your job and decide to open up your own shop. Maybe you had too much coffee that day, or you ate too many croissants and the sugar went to your head. But how hard can it be?
You are in Berlin. You have opened up your own coffee shop, and you are determined to attract the best customers. But, all your barista friends have done exactly the same thing! Your reputation and that of your coffee shop are at stake. Do you have what it takes to become the most popular and hyped coffee shop in all of Berlin? Time to find out.
Seize the Bean is a one-to-four-player game designed by Andy Couch and Dylan Howard Cromwell, published by Seize the Bean. The game is packed full of mechanisms. You have worker placement, card drafting, hand/deck management, resource gathering, and set collection. In Seize the Bean, you start off with a deck of friends and families. As you progress, you will be gaining pantry upgrades, style upgrades, and new customers will flock to your shop.
Coffee And Combos
At the start of the round, you have two workers. Their job is to gain coffee, sugar, milk, new customers, pantry upgrades, and style upgrades. After the action phase, you reveal customers from your deck equal to your hype. The more hype, the more customers. Customers will have different requirements to satisfy their needs. Your starting friends and family cards have basic needs such as coffee and milk, or a snack such as doughnuts, croissants, and cake. The more elaborate needs come from pantry upgrades that give you access to various snacks and different types of coffee.
Any customers you serve will allow you to perform their special ability. Any customers who you do not serve will get grumpy and give you a bad review.
After the serving phase, you may gain another customer to your deck based on word of mouth. Each of your upgrade cards details a specific customer group. You gain a customer if there is one available in the customer market that matches any symbol on your upgrades.
At the end of the round, there is a cleanup phase. The first person (and next first-person token) pass. Cards from the end of the market line are discarded, new ones come out, and play continues.
Seize the Bean ends when a set number of good reviews (depending on player count) have been claimed. Points are awarded for good reviews, whoever has the most in each customer group, and points for any bonus achievements. Points are deducted for negative reviews. The person with the most points is the winner.
Variability Is The Spice Of Life
The variability in Seize the Bean is very high. At the start of the game, you select six different customer groups. Each customer group has specific customer, pantry, and style cards that tie in with that group. There is a whole bunch of groups in the game which all feel very different and mix up the gameplay. Some groups have the ability to add additional customers to your line, some offer a take that aspect, some are quicker playing, and much more. I love the variability in the game and the suggested customer groups in the rulebook are a great addition.
Upgrading Your Way To Success
As you progress in Seize the Bean you can upgrade your pantry and add style upgrades to your café. These upgrades will make your actions more powerful and give you access to various abilities. Also, the pantry upgrades will give you access to different resources, such as strong coffee and soya milk. These resources make fulfilling your customers' requests that much easier. You can create some powerful combos and actions with these upgrades which I really enjoy.
The recipe fulfilment aspect always feels tight and you sometimes have to make some hard choices about who you serve and who you don’t. When you serve a customer you can activate their special ability, which ranges in variety depending on the customer. Depending on the customer groups you choose you can make some interesting combinations. Your worker placement spots gain you resources. You need to balance the gaining of resources with the gaining of customers, pantry upgrades, and style upgrades. I feel like I want/need to do everything during my turn. With only two workers it feels very tight but in a good way. The tightness forces you to compromise and make hard choices.
Get On Board The Hype Train
I love the thematic touch of the way hype works. The more hype your café has, the more customers will be drawn from your deck. But you need to be prepared for the additional customers, as without a good engine up and running you may end up with negative reviews. It is a brilliant, thematic addition to the game.
Word of Mouth also works in an interesting way as well. After you have served your customers, you look at the visible customer group icons on display in your café (displayed on your upgrade cards). If any customers in the market match, one of them gets added to your discard pile. Like attracts like, so if you have a style upgrade that is suited to the Hipsters then a Hipster will come to your café. It all makes sense and works very well.
Coffee For One
The solo mode works very well and plays quickly. You control an AI opponent who takes cards from the market, gains upgrades and good reviews. The solo mode is tough though (or at least I found it tough) but it offers a challenging puzzle and various ways to increase the difficulty. With all the different custom groups the solo mode also has a lot of replayability and variability.
There are lot of things I have not covered, such as advancement tokens. There's also a whole rulebook of expansions, modules, and a host of things you can add in and remove. But for wanting to keep this review short (which I realise I have failed to do already haha) I will leave them for you to check out.
Final Thoughts
Seize the Bean is a game that has combined set collection, worker placement, deck building, and recipe fulfilment and wrapped it all up in an amazing looking package. But does the combination of all these mechanisms work as beautifully as the components look?
Well, let's not beat around the bush here, the gameplay is truly fantastic. Everything comes together into a smooth playing, fairly thematic game. Although the game contains a number of mechanisms that each play a small part in the game, the overall game is greater than the sum of its parts. You may add four to eight cards into your deck, but what you add is important and fairly significant. You perform worker placement on your own player board so there is no competition for the spots, but you only have two workers. What you select is critical to advancing your game.
Suffice to say, I am loving this game. Both solo and multiplayer. It has replayability for days and it is relatively quick playing. There is a lot of iconography I will point out, but there is also a handy reference at the back of the rulebooks clearly explaining everything. Despite this being my longest delayed Kickstarter I am glad the developers took the time to refine the game and get it to where it is today. It is a fantastic game that has so much packed into its relatively small box. Andy, Dylan & Quality Beast thank you for making Seize the Bean.
