Cryptid Cafe Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Cryptid Café, a worker placement game published by 25th Century Games. Cryptid Café puts you in the role of a team of Sasquatch servers attempting to please the most customers at your café by the end of the night.

Generally, I like cooperative games, and I also have a tendency to focus on games based on intellectual properties that I enjoy. As a lover of theme, I like seeing how things I am already familiar with are implemented in a game. Sometimes though, I see a game that just by the cover of it I feel like I need to try because it just looks unique. That’s the case with Cryptid Cafe.

Definitely not a game I would have sought out if the opportunity had not been presented to give it a try. It is a game for 1-4 players, with some slight alterations to make it work at lower player counts. It plays relatively quickly at about 30 minutes or so. The best experience is with 3-4 players.

In Cryptid Cafe, each player is a sasquatch server at the café, attempting to please as many of their monster customers as possible. It has elements of worker placement and resource collection. Overall, the flow of the game is very simple and easy to execute. Your ultimate goal is to be the server with the most tips at the end of the night. Each round is broken down into four simple phases.

The first (and, I would say, primary) phase is placing your server meeples in line at the chef, trying to get certain foods to fulfill your customers’ orders. There are five types of food that your customers may be requesting in various amounts: Al-bone-digas soup, BLTE sandwiches, Cinnamonsters rolls, Hexpressos, and Hot Apple Spiders. You take turns placing your sasquatch servers in line at the Kraken chef to get the food that you need, with