Cafe Clash

Cafe Clash

Our game aims to represent the struggle between small businesses and creatives when it

comes to making a business and the struggle of competition.

There are many actions available to players. Players can decide where they want to put their

items, whether that be chaotically or methodically depending on their personal playstyle. Players

have the ability to guess where the other person's items are, and if guessed correctly they can

add the piece that they have collected to their board making their monetary value go up. This

does make it slightly easier and more difficult for both players to play. Players can also choose

to put items in the storage to keep until they lose more pieces.

Some noticeable patterns are when players get other items, they tend to sell them or keep them

in storage. They don’t really seem to feel one hundred percent confident in the ability to place

new items in their cafe. They also seem to be more focused on taking as many pieces as

possible from the other player and not really paying attention to what pieces they have in their

cafe. Once they put items in storage, they seem to forget they have those items which causes

them to lose.

These patterns cause people to be a little disappointed in themselves because they realize they

have extra items they could have put in their cafe making it easier for them to win. It also seems

to cause people to play completely differently the second time around, choosing not to sell any

pieces or put any in storage. They believe this gives them an advantage, but they notice that

you still have to play strategically, even with keeping their pieces. Usually on the third play

through people combine both methods to play as strategically as possible.

Some ideas that are communicated through the real world theme and the game are the

reservations a lot of small business owners have when it comes to products. As someone who

has a friend with a small business it tends to be hard to have the proper products on display and

ready for sale. The game creates a similar feeling for the players, where they’re not sure what

they can do because of all the different possibilities of the way it can go wrong. The game

creates that thought process that many small businesses go through and creates a higher level

of understanding for those who do not own small businesses. It was not my intent for people to

experience this, as I wanted them to be able to experience the ability to create and design in a

way that spoke to them personally, which was only used a little bit in the putting together of a

cafe.