If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at being a barista but doubt that you actually have the skills to create latte art or, perhaps more importantly, deal with caffeine-deprived customers, the new mobile game Good Coffee, Great Coffee officially made its debut on the App Store and Google Play store last night. And I absolutely cannot get enough.
Good Coffee, Great Coffee is the follow-up to 2014’s Good Pizza, Great Pizza, a mobile cooking simulator that quickly became a cult favorite. In that game, players open their own pizzerias and serve up orders to a quirky cast of demanding customers, many of whom have some really odd preferences. Good Coffee, Great Coffee follows a similar format to its predecessor, dropping you right into a new cafe in Coffee City and introducing you to the neighbors as you learn to pull shots of espresso, make increasingly complicated drinks, and get lattes out to customers in a timely manner.
The game’s mechanics are intended to feel as much like pulling a shot of espresso can when it just involves a few taps on an iPhone screen. Once you’re behind the virtual espresso machine, you swipe to remove the portafilter and stick it under the grinder until it’s appropriately full of coffee. Then, you’re asked to tamp down the coffee, brew a perfect shot, then jazz it up with various accoutrements if requested before serving the piping hot shot to the customer. Things quickly get more complicated as you attempt to perfectly steam milk and pour the right ratios of hot water into an Americano, and sometimes chaos ensues.
I haven’t gotten too far into Good Coffee, Great Coffee yet — I did have to get some amount of sleep last night — but I predict that I will spend many, many hours in the coming weeks (virtually) steaming milk and pouring lattes. Part of what makes Good Pizza, Great Pizza such a compelling game its how satisfying its mechanics make the process of spreading digital sauce onto a crust before piling it with toppings, and its successor seems to have mostly replicated that feel. I appreciated that the steaming wand was a little fiddly as I tried to froth and steam the milk, which infused just enough benign frustration to keep me playing. Also motivating are the game’s customer satisfaction ratings, which drop quickly if you don’t prepare the drink in a timely manner or screw it up.
And with just a few in-game days, Good Coffee, Great Coffee immediately made it clear to me that I would not be able to hack it as a real-life barista, especially in this era of infinitely customizable (and complicated!) lattes. But that won’t stop me from running Amy’s Cozy Cafe in the comfort of my own home — and without ever having to speak to an actual human.