Café Rush
Brew, top and serve before the regulars lose patience
How to play
Café Rush is a free online café game in the time management style of Diner Dash: animal regulars order coffee, tea and cocoa at Mocha's counter, and you brew, top and serve each drink before their patience runs out. A shift lasts two and a half minutes, plays with one finger, and runs in any browser on phone or desktop and in Telegram via @MatsuriGamesBot, with no download. Play the daily shift, practise, or challenge a friend.
Café Rush is a cute time management game set in Mocha's café, in the spirit of Diner Dash and Cooking Fever, played with one finger. Animal regulars, cats, bunnies, bears, puppies, pandas and foxes, walk up to four places at the counter and show their order in a bubble: a cup of coffee, tea or cocoa, maybe milk or whipped cream, maybe sprinkles, a strawberry or a marshmallow on top, and later in the shift a cupcake or a cookie on the side. Tap the cup stack, then the machines and jars in order to build the drink on your tray, and tap the customer to serve it. Coffee, tea and cocoa take a moment to brew, so start the next cup while one is in the machine: the tray holds two. Every customer's hearts drain while they wait; a quick serve tips more, and quick serves in a row build a combo up to ×4. A wrong drink earns a frown and costs patience, and three customers leaving in a huff close the café early. A shift lasts two and a half minutes and gets busier toward rush hour. The daily shift brings the same customers for everyone, so the leaderboard is fair.
- Click the cup stack, then the coffee machine, the tea kettle or the cocoa pot: it brews for a moment, so start the next cup meanwhile. My tray holds two.
- Milk or cream goes in before the topping, then a pastry if the bubble shows one. Click a cup on the tray to choose which one you're filling; the bin throws it away.
- Click a customer to serve before their hearts run out: quick serves in a row tip ×2, ×3, ×4. Three grumpy regulars close my café early. P, Esc or Space pauses.
How to play Café Rush
Cats, bunnies, bears, puppies, pandas and foxes walk up to four places at the counter, each with an order bubble. To build a drink, tap the cup stack (a cup lands on the two-cup tray), then a base: the coffee machine brews in 1.2 seconds, the tea kettle in 1.4 and the cocoa pot in 1.0. The cup leaves the tray while it brews and comes back by itself, and each machine takes one cup at a time. Then add milk or whipped cream if the order asks, always before the topping, then a topping: sprinkles, a strawberry or a marshmallow. Toppings appear in orders from 0:25, and from 1:10 some orders add a cupcake or a cookie from the pastry case. Tap a cup on the tray to choose which one the next step goes into; the bin throws the chosen cup away.
Tap a customer to serve: the chosen cup goes if it matches the order exactly, otherwise the other cup does if that one matches. A wrong drink earns a frown, costs a quarter of that customer's patience and resets the combo, and the cup stays on your tray. Patience hearts drain while a customer waits, about 28 seconds at the start down to 18 near the end, plus 1.5 seconds for every step an order has past its base; three customers leaving in a huff close the shift early. A tip is the order's worth (6 coins plus 4 a step past the base) times 60% to 120% depending on how fast you served, times the combo. The score is the total of your tips.
Café Rush strategy and tips
- Keep both tray spots busy: while a coffee brews, take a second cup for the next order. The brewed cup slides back by itself, so you rarely have to wait.
- Serve the customer with the fewest hearts first. A serve with at least half the patience left counts as quick, and quick serves in a row lift the combo to ×2 from the third, ×3 from the sixth and ×4 from the tenth.
- Milk before topping, every time: a cup with sprinkles on can no longer take milk. If a cup goes wrong, the bin is cheaper than handing it over, since a wrong drink costs patience and the whole combo.
- Long orders pay most: each step past the base adds 4 coins to the order's worth, so a cocoa with cream, a marshmallow and a cookie is worth 18 coins before the speed bonus and the combo.
- Save some calm for rush hour. In the last 40 seconds customers arrive about every two seconds, and the combo you carry into it multiplies every tip of the busiest stretch.
Modes and difficulty
The daily shift brings the same customers with the same orders for everyone and changes at 00:00 UTC; only your first try counts on its leaderboard. Practice shifts are new every time and can be played as often as you like, and a friend challenge sends a friend the very same shift. Each shift pays candy, the hall's coin: 1 for every two customers served, 1 for every three quick serves and 3 more for a full shift with nobody leaving angry, up to 40 a shift (within the hall's daily candy budget).
Playing Café Rush on Matsuri
Café Rush is built for a phone held in one hand: every station sits along the bottom of the screen, and the very first customer is in no hurry, so a newcomer can learn the order of the steps. On a computer you click instead, and P, Esc or Space pauses. Every shift is made from a seed and replayed on the server tap by tap, so the daily leaderboard is fair. In a Telegram group with @MatsuriGamesBot, every member's score lands on that group's own board.
A little history
Time management games took off with Diner Dash, made by Gamelab and published by PlayFirst in 2004, where a waitress seats customers, takes orders and serves food before they lose patience. Cooking Mama turned the kitchen into a series of touch-screen steps, Cooking Fever brought the restaurant rush to phones, and Overcooked made it a cooperative scramble. Café Rush keeps the heart of the genre, building orders step by step against the clock, in a two-and-a-half-minute shift.
Questions
- Is Café Rush free, and does it work on a phone?
- Yes. It is free with no ads, no download and no sign-up, in any browser on a phone or a computer and inside Telegram through @MatsuriGamesBot. It plays with one finger: tap the stations to build a drink and tap the customer to serve it.
- How do I make a drink in Café Rush?
- Tap the cup stack to put a cup on your tray, then the coffee machine, the tea kettle or the cocoa pot. The cup brews for a moment (cocoa 1 second, coffee 1.2, tea 1.4) and comes back to the tray by itself. Then add milk or whipped cream if the order has it, a topping (sprinkles, a strawberry or a marshmallow), and from 1:10 a cupcake or a cookie if the bubble shows one. Tap the customer to serve.
- How long is a shift, and how does it end?
- A shift lasts two and a half minutes and gets busier as it goes; the last 40 seconds are rush hour. Each customer's hearts drain while they wait, from about 28 seconds of patience early on to about 18 near the close. A customer who runs out leaves in a huff, and the third one closes the café early.
- How are tips and the score counted?
- The score is the coins you earn in tips. An order is worth 6 coins plus 4 for each step past the base; you get 120% of that when you serve at once, down to 60% with no patience left, times your combo: ×2 from the third quick serve in a row, ×3 from the sixth, ×4 from the tenth. A quick serve leaves the customer at least half their patience, with no wrong drink. The daily shift is the same for everyone, and the server replays every tap to check the score.