Game: Coffee Caravan
Genre: Action, Simulation, Strategy
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Broccoli Games
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $11.99 | UK £ 11.49 | EU € 11,99
Release Date: May 20th, 2024
A review code was used; many thanks to Broccoli Games.
Coffee Caravan looks like a bite-sized cutie, a minimalist take on the restaurant sim that sees your barista whipping around a pop-up coffee shop and doing what they do best. But unless you’re paying careful attention to the promotional screenshots, you might miss what big-name game it’s borrowing from. And without that screenshot, you’ll literally never guess: It’s a cafe sim inspired by none other than one of the big dogs of the rogue-lite genre, Slay the Spire.
It’s an inspired twist, and it’s not the only cosier take on the path-based rogue-lite; as edgy as Cult of the Lamb’s take is, it’s only a harsh game if you want it to be, but it’s still a surprisingly tricky take on sims. Does it work? Honestly, it does, and pretty well.
Coffee Caravan Takes You On a Journey of Choice
Coffee Caravan’s main screen lets you customize your minimalist barista just enough to feel attached to them, then gives you a quick but useful tutorial. As your first day in your new life dawns, you’ll set your appliances and your guest tables up the way you’d like, open the shop, and do your best to satisfy your customers within a crunchy-fast period of time.
Choosing to start your new run with either coffee or espresso allows a difficulty modifier; espresso is more finicky, so it’s a harder mode, whereas coffee is pretty straightforward. Your first run will be simple, straightforward, and probably pretty short as you get used to what’s going on. But as you manage to work through the days, you’ll unlock new appliances and decorations, all of which can make your run easier or not, depending on what you’d like to do.
What’s nice is that most of these unlocks are permanent per save file, reducing an unfair sense of randomization and giving you a reason to save up for niftier gadgets or hope for a good treasure down the line. That makes future runs a lot easier, compared to other games like Slay the Spire, and allows you to decide how cozy you want your session to be today.
Coffee Caravan Starts Small But Gets Wild
At first, you’ll have one table, two cups, a five-serving coffee machine, a sink, a grinder, a bag of beans, a side table, and a trash can. It’s a small setup, but it’s more than enough to get used to the rhythm you need to survive the day ahead. Arranging your caravan and your tables is a streamlined lesson in efficiency. A personal tip is to put the side table by your caravan door as a staging area.
Once you’re open for business, you can’t accidentally move your stuff around. And thank goodness for that. You’ve got to set your beans to grind, pour water into the brewing station, toss in the grounds, and get that cup ready to go by the time your first guest sits down.
If you’ve played Dave the Diveror any recent management sim of that type, you know the drill: seated customers can get impatient. Waiting customers can get impatient. You only have two cups to start, so you better get the rhythm of washing and serving down fast. Hence that staging area; got a breather? Throw a cup over there and scrub the other while you have a little time.
It won’t be long before you have an automatic grinder, or more cups, or even a dishwasher rack, but it also won’t be long before you have more tables and a daily modifier that makes your guests grumpier than usual. A few fumbled movements, one unhappy customer, and your run is done.
Coffee Caravan Isn’t A Brutalist Server’s Nightmare
On the bright side, the game is optimized for controllers, runs like a breeze on Steam Deck, and has a variety of coffee options that are actually simple to manage. Bonus: failing a run incurs very little downside. Your money is wiped, your progress up the map is gone, and any run modifiers are out. But like I said, you get to keep your unlocked equipment, giving you lots more customization options on your next run.
The result is a game that strips off the sim genre’s excuse plot craziness and lets you have a quick, 20-40-minute session or so of zen-like coffee pouring with zero interruptions. Because, and I’m speaking as someone who loves the life sim genre and all its NPC complexity, sometimes you just wanna zone out. It’s weird that this game does that with the rogue-like tree of random encounters, but it somehow works.
Coffee Caravan’s Aesthetic is a Latte
Perhaps the only downside I feel I gotta pick at is that, while it makes sense to paint your game in soft caffeinated browns and milky off-whites, there’s not a lot of aesthetic pop in the game. There are some muted teals and pinks for gentle contrast, but combined with a minimalist, rounded, voxel-style design for your variety of characters, there’s not a lot to admire about the graphics.
That said, the visuals do what they need to do, and I’m far from saying that they’re ugly, just that maybe I’d like a little more color and spark in the decorative items. The important part is that a: it’s not easy to get confused about your appliances, and b: an option to give them abbreviated labels helps a ton if you’re easily distracted.
Conclusion
Coffee Caravan is a surprising riff on one of today’s most popular subgenres, and what’s more surprising is that it works pretty well, so long as what you want is a game that speed runs you through a sleek restaurant management sim with the promise of some useful goodies to unlock. I found the harder options to be pretty intimidating at first, but catching the rhythm of brewing, serving, cleaning, and then doing it again is a lot of fun in short bursts, and the lack of harsh consequences means you don’t feel burned for trying.
That said, it really is a game best played in short sessions, and its quick run times make that easy and fun to do without risking burnout. The gradual recipe unlocks also adds variety without being overwhelming, and the result is a well-done, small-scale game that handles its strange little niche quite smoothly. Its minimalism and short-run flair mean it might not be for everyone. Still, for those looking for a quick visit to the land of Zen and the Art of Coffee, Coffee Caravan is a determined offering that stays grounded in the world of sims yet whimsical enough to throw that gentle rogue-lite style in the mix.
Final Verdict: I Like It
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