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Café Del Gatto box art
2023 Ranked #12,534

Café Del Gatto

Economic set-building game has competing baristas buy coffee and milk tiles to complete and serve valuable drinks. Tile costs depend on the opposite machine row, so purchasing choices constantly change what rivals can afford.

Open Drafting Animals: Cats Food & Drink: Coffee Food & Drink: Tea

Players

2-5

Play time

Not listed

Age

8+

Complexity

1.33/5

Rating

6.26

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.9/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 3.9/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.7/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

In Café del Gatto, you want to serve valuable drinks to customers, but you're competing against other baristas for coffee and milk, so making drinks will be tricky! To set up, each player takes five glass tiles that require 1-4 "shots" to complete.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

In Café del Gatto, you want to serve valuable drinks to customers, but you're competing against other baristas for coffee and milk, so making drinks will be tricky! To set up, each player takes five glass tiles that require 1-4 "shots" to complete. Place the 36 coffee/milk tiles in the bag, then draw five tiles to fill the milk side of the espresso machine, then five tiles to fill the coffee side. Each double-sided coffee/milk tile has a value from 1-4 as well as a symbol for cold, hot, or foamy. Each player starts with 4-5 coins. Place completed drink tiles in the center of the playing area; each drink (cappuccino, latte macchiato, etc.) has tiles of varying values. On a turn, take one of three actions: Take 2 coins from the bank. Buy a tile from the espresso machine, with the cost of the tile being equal to the adjacent tile on the opposite side of the machine. If you're buying a milk tile, for example, the cost is the value on the adjacent coffee tile. Tiles in the top two rows have a 1-2 coin surcharge. Place the tile in the lowest empty matching space on one of your drink tiles, then draw a tile from the bag to refill the machine. If you buy a 1 tile, it comes with a bonus sugar cube. Serve one or more completed drinks. For each glass tile that has all its spots filled, first gain coins from the bank, earning more coins if the drink has fewer symbols in it. (Mixing cold and hot tiles isn't good!) Next, take a completed drink tile of the same type that has a value equal to or less than the sum of the tiles, gaining coins to make up the difference. You can raise the value of a drink by 1 for each sugar cube spent. At the start of your turn, you can spend 2 coins to flush one side of the espresso machine, then refill it. As soon as a player has served all five types of drinks, complete the round, then sum the value of your completed drink tiles, with each pair of sugar cubes counting as 1 point. Whoever has the most points wins, with coin serving as a tiebreaker.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
3–5
Play time
30 min
Age
8+
Complexity
1.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

2
Lena Burkhardt Julia Wagner

Artists

1
Robin Struss

Publishers

1
Schmidt Spiele

Linked items

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