Board Game Cafe Frenzy Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective of the Game
• Components
• Game Setup
• Component Reference Guide
• Gameplay
• Preparation Phase
• Phase 1 Scoring
• Store Opening Phase
• Resolving Cards: Special Cases
• Use Action Discs
  • 1) Activate Ability
  • 2) Preserve Icon
• End of Game Scoring
• Tiebreaker Rules
• Determining the Winner
• Variant
  • 2-Player Game
  • Family Game
  • Advanced Mode
    • 1) Customer Challenge
    • 2) Extreme Challenge
    • 3) Board Game Café Abilities
• Short Game

Objective of the Game

The goal of the game is to have the most money at the end of two phases. In the first phase (Preparation Phase), players will make investments into their own board game café. In the second phase (Store Opening Phase), players will attempt to win over customers and earn as much money as possible.

Tip: If this is your first game, try the short game first (rules on the last page). Rules for the full game will be covered first.

Components

• 3 Rulebooks (Chinese, English, Japanese)
• 3 Player Reference Cards
• 6 Store Boards
• 5 Capacity Cards
• 50 Game Cards (5 suits numbered from 1-10)
• 12 Customer Cards (4x3 different levels)
• 5 Marketplace Tokens (-2, -1, -1, 0, 0)
• 1 Family Game Replacement Marketplace Token
• 2 Action Disc Multiplication Tokens
• 24 Action Tiles
• 56 Action Discs
• 56 Coins (28x1, 16x5, 8x10, and 4x50)

Game Setup

01 Give each player 1 capacity card and 1 randomly selected store board. Players put the capacity card under the board, showing just the "0." This card will be used to track the size of the board game café and limits the maximum number of cards a player can play in the Store Opening Phase to the store area. In the base game, ignore the special abilities shown on the store board – you can play with those abilities once you are more familiar with the game.

02 Player turn order is determined by store number; from lowest (first) to highest (last). The 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th / 5th player receives 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 coins.

03 Separate the customer cards by level, shuffle them separately, and place them to the side. Reveal 2 cards from the Level 2 deck and place them faceup as common customers.

04 Shuffle all the action tiles and form a facedown deck. Reveal the top 3 action tiles faceup.

05 Return the following game cards to the box:

2-3 players: 7, 8, 9, and 10 of each suit 4 players: 9 and 10 of each suit 5 players: Do not return any cards

Shuffle the remaining cards and form a facedown draw pile.

06 Form the marketplace by placing the following marketplace tokens in a row, from left to right:

2-3 players: -2, -1, and 0 tokens. 4 players: -2, -1, -1, and 0 tokens. 5 players: -2, -1, -1, 0, and 0 tokens.

07 Place all the coins and action discs to the side to form the supply.

08 Place all other unused components back in the box.

You may now start the game!

Component Reference Guide

Game Card

• Starting side (before upgrade): card number; rewards gained during Preparation Phase; rewards gained during Store Opening Phase.
• Upgraded side: rewards gained after upgrade.

Customer Card

• Customer's Level.
• Customer Requirements.
• Reward gained for fulfilling customer's requirements.
• Penalty for unfulfilled customer cards.

Suit

• Meal
• Board Game
• Employee
• Storefront
• Wi-Fi

Marketplace Token and Turn Order Marker

• Marketplace Token (front): Player Number and Cost.
• Turn Order Marker (back).

Example: Setup for 3 Players (the printed diagram shows the 3-player layout of the store boards, capacity cards, game cards, customer cards, action tiles, marketplace tokens and coins for Player 1, Player 2 and Player 3).

Gameplay

The game plays in two phases, the Preparation Phase and the Store Opening Phase. Scoring occurs at the end of each phase. The player who accumulates the most coins at the end of both phases wins!

Preparation Phase

There are 10 rounds in this phase. At the start of each round, draw game cards equal to the number of players (for a 2-player game, include the AI player), and going from left to right place them from highest to lowest below the marketplace tokens. The "-2" should receive the largest card; the "0" on the very right should receive the smallest. Place cards of equal value in the order they are drawn.

Place game cards left to right from highest to lowest.

Players purchase cards, receive rewards, and determine the new turn order.

A. Purchase Cards: In turn order, each player must purchase 1 card and pay the cost shown by the marketplace token.

B. Receive Rewards: After purchasing, place the card faceup in your own game card pile. Then immediately receive the Round 1 reward indicated on the card, which are as follows:

• Meal: None
• Board Game: None
• Wi-Fi: None
• Employee: Immediately gain 1 action disc.
• Storefront: Immediately gain 1 action tile.

After all players have gained their rewards, the player who selected the "-2" card may also gain 1 additional action tile.

Action discs are taken from the supply and players may select 1 of the 3 faceup action tiles. Always immediately refill the action tiles back up to 3 whenever possible.

C. Determine New Turn Order: Turn order for the next round is based on who purchased what cards in the previous round, and the order goes from right to left in the marketplace. That is, the player who purchased the "0" cost card on the very right is first in turn order, and the player who purchased the "-2" card is last.

Action Tile

Note: In the first phase, each player takes the same number of cards and the capacity limits do not apply. Action discs and tiles will only be used in the second phase.

Note: Players must buy a card. If they do not have enough money, they pay whatever they have left and receive the card anyway. If there are multiple cards available, they must take the least expensive card possible.

Suggestion: If you are afraid of forgetting or confusing the turn order, just place your store board right onto the place of the card you just bought in the market. After all players have placed their store board to the market, it shows the turn order clearly. So you can use the store board as the turn order marker each turn. When this phase ends, take your store board back and again place the store board on your capacity card.

Example: In the third round, Karen is the first player because she bought the rightmost card in the previous round. There are three cards available: Board Game "6", Wi-Fi "3", and Board Game "2." Karen decides to take Board Game "2" for free (the rightmost card), because she wants to be the first player for the next round as well. Jack is next because the card he selected in the prior round is lower than Jenny's. He decides to pay 2 coins for Board Game "6," the leftmost card. Jenny must pay 1 coin to take Wi-Fi "3." After all players have taken their actions, Jack may select 1 of the 3 faceup action tiles as his reward for taking the leftmost card.

Example: Determining turn order for the next round (3 Players). Third player / Second player / First player.

Phase 1 Scoring

After all 10 rounds, each player scores as follows:

1. The player with the most / 2nd most / 3rd most Wi-Fi cards receives 6 / 3 / 1 coins.

2. Each player receives 3 coins for each pair of board game plus meal cards collected.

Flip marketplace tokens.

Prepare for Store Opening Phase: All players put all their purchased cards into their hand. Flip the marketplace tokens to the reverse side showing turn order. Going from fewest to most coins, players take the lowest turn order marker available (i.e., the player with the fewest coins takes the "1" marker and starts as the first player). If there is a tie, see tiebreaker rules.

Store Opening Phase

There are also 10 rounds in this phase. At the start of each round, players follow turn order to each play a card from their hand. The cards are then resolved, players earn their rewards, and they may choose to use an action disc.

A. Play Cards: At the start of each round, each player plays a card from their hand in turn order. Each player must play a card of a different suit if possible (if not, see "Resolving Cards: Special Cases"). After each player has played a card, determine the turn order for the next round from highest to lowest card played (i.e., the player who played the highest card will be the first player, the player who played the lowest card will be the last player). If there is a tie, see tiebreaker rules. Players will then take the appropriate turn order token (i.e., first player takes "1", second takes "2", etc.).

Example: Jack takes 2 cards. Karen takes the remaining card. Jenny gets 2 action discs.

B. Earn Rewards: The player who has the "1" turn order marker will be able to take 2 of the cards and place them into the store area (to the right of their player board). Next, the player who has the "2" turn order marker will take 1 card into their store area. This continues until all played cards have been taken. (i.e., in a 5-player game, the third player takes 1 card, then the fourth player takes the remaining card). The last player will take no cards into their store area, but will receive two action discs from the supply as consolation. When a card is placed into your store area, you will immediately gain the card's rewards. The rewards are as follows:

• Meal: Immediately gain 1 coin.
• Board Game: Immediately gain 1 coin.
• Wi-Fi: Gain 1 Wi-Fi icon.
• Employee: Immediately gain 1 action disc.
• Storefront: Increase your store area capacity by 1.

If you get two cards on the same turn, you may choose the order to resolve the rewards.

Check Capacity: After placing your cards and receiving the rewards, if the number of cards in the store area exceeds the store area total capacity, then you must discard a board game, meal, or Wi-Fi card from the store area. Players will lose the cards for end game scoring purposes, but retain the coins they received from those cards. Players may choose to discard existing cards, or discard the new cards just received. However, if players choose to discard any new cards, players will not receive the rewards associated with those cards.

Storefront cards do not go into the store area; instead, they are placed to the left of the player board and increase the overall store area capacity. Storefront cards can never be removed.

Note: Once placed in the store area, employee cards can also never be removed.

Example: Karen is the first player and plays Meal "2." Jack is the second player, but unfortunately only has meal cards remaining, so he plays Meal "5." Jenny is the third player and plays Wi-Fi "1." When resolving turn order, even though her card is the lowest, Jenny is first player because she played the only Wi-Fi card while her opponents played the same suit (see Resolving Cards: Special Cases). She is able to take 2 of the 3 played cards. Because he played the higher meal card, Jack is second in turn order, and takes the remaining played card. Karen is last in turn order, and takes 2 action discs from the supply.

Illustration: Jenny takes 2 cards. Jack takes the remaining card. Karen gets 2 action discs. Gain rewards immediately.

Resolving Cards: Special Cases

If a player has no option but to play a card that matches an existing suit, then for turn order ranking purposes, that suit is considered lower than the other suits and will the players will receive turn order tokens after everyone else. In general, there are three possible cases:

1. All players play different suits or the same suit (rarely happens). Resolve turn order from highest to lowest card number.

All different suits. All same suit (rare).

2. One of the suits has multiple cards. Resolve turn order (based on highest to lowest card number) for the players who played cards of all other suits first. Then resolve turn order for the players who played the same suit from highest to lowest.

Turn Order. Cards played this round.

3. Multiple suits have multiple cards. Resolve the turn order starting with the suit with the highest valued card (going high to low within that suit), then resolving the next suit from high to low. If multiple suits are tied, see tiebreaker rules.

Turn Order. Cards played this round.

Use Action Discs

C. Use Action Discs: Every round, after resolving turn order and earning rewards, players can place one of their action discs on a space in one of their action tiles. Each action disc may be placed on one of its two sides to indicate which of the two actions the player intends to take: 1) activate ability or 2) preserve icon.

Action Tile.

Note: Action discs are considered unlimited. If you run out of action discs during the game, you can use other objects as counters or the action disc multiplication tokens to represent a number of action discs.

1) Activate Ability

The player places the action disc to activate the icon shown on an empty space in one of their action tiles.

Example: Upgraded cards. Place action disc. Flip the board game card over and immediately gain the rewards.

The abilities are as follows:

• Meal: Upgrade a meal by flipping a meal card in your store area to the back side. Immediately gain 3 coins.
• Board Game: Upgrade a board game by flipping a board game card in your store area to the back side. Immediately gain 2 coins.
• Wi-Fi: Upgrade Wi-Fi by flipping a Wi-Fi card in your store area to the back side to show 2 Wi-Fi icons.
• Employee: Upgrade (i.e., Promote) an employee by flipping an employee card in your store area to the back side. Immediately gain 2 action discs. In addition, the upgraded employee counts as an additional standard board game or meal icon to fulfill customer cards and other conditions for end of game scoring.
• Storefront: Upgrade storefront game by flipping a storefront card to the back side. Immediately increase your store area capacity by 1.
• +1: Increase your store area capacity by 1.
• Mystery Customer: Pick one of the two customer decks and draw 2 cards. Select 1 of the 2 cards to keep facedown in your play area, returning the other to the bottom of the deck. This will be an additional customer card you can fulfill for additional end game scoring ().

2) Preserve Icon

The player places the action disc to preserve a Wi-Fi, board game, or meal icon on one of their action tiles. Specifically, they can place preserve action discs on:

• An empty Wi-Fi space,
• A board game space with no more than 1 preserve action disc, or
• A meal space with no more than 1 preserve action disc

Note: Players may place two preserve action discs on the same board game or meal icon (takes 2 turns). This represents preserving an upgraded meal or board game.

Example: This customer needs both a board game and an upgraded meal. Karen has 1 board game in her café. She decides to take two turns to place two preserve icon action discs on one of the meal icons shown on her action tile to meet the customer's requirements for an upgraded meal.

Place second action disc. Customer Requirements.

At the end of the game, all icons on action tile spaces with a preserve icon action disc will be counted during end of game scoring.

Note: A preserve action disc may never be placed in a space already with an activate action disc, or vice versa.

Important: Once an action disc has been placed, it cannot be moved or flipped!

End of Game Scoring

End of game scoring occurs after all players have played all the cards from their hand. Score as follows:

1. Receive coins based on how many Wi-Fi icons were collected:

• 1 Wi-Fi icon: 2 coins
• 2-3 Wi-Fi icons: 4 coins
• 4-5 Wi-Fi icons: 8 coins
• 6-8 Wi-Fi icons: 16 coins
• 9+ Wi-Fi icons: 28 coins

2. Receive coins based on any customer cards fulfilled (both open and mystery). To meet the conditions on the customer cards, players must have the required number of icons on the customer cards via the cards in their store area and / or any action tile icons preserved by action discs. Each icon may only be counted for one customer card. Players that fail to fulfill any open (non-mystery) customer cards will have to pay the penalty shown on the card.

Types of Customer Requirements:

• Standard Board Games
• Standard Meals
• Upgraded Board Games
• Upgraded Meals
• Wi-Fi

3. Every 2 action discs is worth 1 coin.

4. Receive up to a max of 10 coins based on your store capacity (see scoring chart).

Scoring chart (store capacity: coins received), as read from the printed chart on page 13: the chart's rows for capacity 0 to 3 show no coins; 4 = 1 coin; 5 = 2 coins; 6 = 3 coins; 7 = 5 coins; 8 = 7 coins; 9 = 10 coins. (The printed chart is a small graphic; the row values are transcribed from it.)

Example: +2 coins.

5. Pay each employee 1 coin and each upgraded employee 2 coins (discard paid coins to supply).

6. Certain board game cafés will allow for some special scoring bonuses up to a max of 10 coins (see advanced rules).

Tiebreaker Rules

Anytime there is a tie during the game, ties are broken in favor of the player with more employees within their store area (not applicable for Preparation Phase). If players have the same number of employees, ties are then broken in favor of the player with fewer coins. If players have the same number of coins, ties are then broken in favor of the board game store with the smallest number.

Determining the Winner

Add up all the coins for each player. The player with the most coins wins the game. If there is a tie, the player with most employees wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most cards wins. If there is still a tie, the player earlier in turn order at the end of the final round wins.

Variant

2-Player Game

The two player game plays the same as a 3-player game with an AI player.

During the Preparation Phase, whenever a card is not taken by either player, it is given to the AI player for free. Besides coins, the AI player will not receive any other resources. To resolve turn order, only compare the cards between the two human players.

Before the Store Opening Phase, shuffle the AI player's cards and arrange it into a facedown draw deck. During the round, whenever the AI needs to play a card, reveal the top card from the deck. Resolve the turn order for AI as usual. When playing a card, players cannot play a card that is the same suit as the card played (or about to be played) by the AI (suits are visible on the reverse side as well). After determining turn order, if the AI player needs to take cards, the human player with higher (earlier) turn order will select the cards on behalf of the AI. Whenever the AI receives cards, the cards immediately upgrade and the AI receives any associated coin rewards.

During end of game scoring, add the AI's coins to those it accumulated in the first round. Then double the total coins to arrive at its final score. At the end of the game, if the AI player has more coins than both players combined, the players have lost. Otherwise, the human player with more coins wins. If there is a tie, see Determining the Winner rules.

Family Game

For a faster, lighter game, play with the following rules:

• Remove all storefront cards, capacity cards, and action tiles.
• Replace the "-2" marketplace token with the family game replacement marketplace token.
• Play each phase with 8 rounds instead of 10.
• Players who select the leftmost card in the Preparation Phase receive 1 action disc instead of 1 action tile.
• There is no capacity limit for cards to be played into the store area during the Store Opening Phase.
• At the end of the game, every unused action disc counts as 1 coin.

Note: Family game rules cannot be mixed with the advanced mode.

Advanced Mode

1) Customer Challenge

Players reveal 3 customer cards, one from each of the three levels. Whenever a player meets a customer's requirements, take the card from the center and receive the associated reward. (note: Each icon may only be counted for one customer card.) Replace the card with a new card from the deck so that there are always three cards available. During end of game scoring, do not score the common customer cards again. Players will not receive additional rewards (or penalties) for meeting or not meeting customer cards. When players activate a Mystery Customer space on their action tile, they can opt to take one of the common customer cards instead of drawing from the deck.

2) Extreme Challenge

Players reveal 3 customer cards, one from each of the three levels. Players may reveal more if they all agree. At the end of the game, each player will be penalized for not reaching each of the common customer cards.

3) Board Game Café Abilities

For greater challenge and more variety, give each player a starting board game café (either randomly or players may select) and play with the abilities listed on the player board. The abilities are as follows:

• Meeple in the Water (1): At the end of the game, every 2 upgraded cards gives you 3 coins.
• Meeple Soup (2): At the start of the game, receive 3 action discs. Receive 1 coin per action disc at the end of the game.
• Board Game Café Frenzy (3): At the end of the game, receive 1 coin for each action tile in front of you.
• Cooking Meeple (4): At the end of the game, receive 2 coins for every customer card fulfilled (including mystery customers).
• Scrunch House (5): At the end of the game, receive coins equal to the number of additional units of upgraded capacity (original capacity does not count) + 1.
• Heaven Café (6): Receive 1 Wi-Fi icon at the start of the game. At the end of the game, receive 1 coin for each Wi-Fi icon you have.

Short Game

The game is played starting with the Store Opening Phase and with the following changes:

• Deal each player 10 cards randomly.
• Each player selects 2 cards to pass facedown to the player on their left, and 2 more cards to pass facedown to the player on their right.
• After all players have been passed both sets, players look at the passed cards and add them to their hands.
• Also randomly give each player 4 action tiles (or draft the action tiles) as well as 2 action discs. The player with board game café #3 (Board Game Café Frenzy) may receive 1 additional action tile.