On February 5, 2012 I invited some of my closest friends over to a friend’s house to play the upcoming Dice Hate Me Games release VivaJava: The Coffee Game.

We assembled 6 players including myself and the designer T.C. Petty III…and somehow decided to live stream the game over the internet. The footage of the game is available here. This special event was meant to be helpful to the Kickstarter campaign for the game, and also involved a chat component on the hosting website and some questions and answers through Twitter. The intent of the session was to allow people to see the game in action.

WATCH THE VIDEO!

Designer TC Petty III gives an overview at the beginning of the video and then we started playing. If you choose not to watch the video, then the following description may be helpful.

The briefest introduction and explanation I can give of the game is that you’re in charge of researching and blending the world’s greatest coffees. Unfortunately, you can’t do it alone. You have to work with your competition from time to time in order to create the most popular flavors of coffee.

There are two main boards, the score board and the map board.

The turn order for the game is determined by the placement of player tokens on the scoring track. These player tokens are stackable.  The tokens are read back to front top to bottom.

The Map Board is broken into three sections, each section contains three spaces. In turn order we began placing our super pawns  on one of the available sections on the map board. This being a six player game, we were guaranteed to have to work with someone else every turn. This is the one of the greatest features of the game, forced cooperation.

Each player has a personal tableau for the game, where they keep track of all their research points, moving up along the five tracks and gaining special abilities and points.

Players also get a sack with three beans. This is still referred to as a “roaster,”…but it’s more fun making “sack “ jokes.

In the game on Sunday, I began fairly quickly with the sack jokes, but this game doesn’t need those to be fun and entertaining. I do.

Back to the game…

The roaster contains beans. Beans come in several colors. You’re going to end up with lots of beans in your roaster over the course of the game. The trick is managing which beans you have and how you draw out what you want when you want it. This is the key to the game: Know what’s in your roaster and how to best manipulate it for the desired outcome. Each Roaster begins with three beans, two yellows and a white.

The colors of the beads are very much like the suites in a deck of cards. Each color has a ranking Yellow and white are ranked the lowest. Black beans are the highest. That’s important to know.

We all played our Super Pawns on the map board. This does three things for each player: A. it gives a player one bean (players know which bean they’re getting before they choose,) B. it grants each player a special action (wide range of positive and negative actions) and C. it breaks the large group up into smaller groups (tells you who your partner is for the next stage.)

I think my first turn I gained a yellow bean and then traded a bean from my roaster with another player (taking one of their beans and then giving them one of mine. I’m pretty sure it was Brian I did that with.

Once we’ve partnered up we have the great decision to make: Blend or research. You vote on this with your new best friend. You do a lot of talking about what’s in your roaster (you can’t show, but you do talk about it.)

My first partner was Lesley…and we decided to research. …So, I guess this is a good time to talk about researching.

Researching gives each player who researches three research points to use on their personal tableau. These points allow you to move one of the five markers up on anyone of the tracks. One research point means one space. As you increase your position on the tracks, your abilities get stronger.

We decided to research and my first three points were used on the Grow Track, which would allow me to gain two beans every time I received a bean on the Map Board. This is important to my strategy…but, it’s fair to tell you that I haven’t won. I still think it’s a great strategy and I’ve done well with it some days, but just not on a whole. There are five tracks to choose from, or you could choose them all and keep it balanced. Lots of my opponents love the Investment track or the flavor cards.

The other choice, besides researching is to blend. Players reach into their roaster and pull out beans one at a time, selecting the beans they’ll be using for their new blend. Blends are combinations of five beans that are rated on a chart based on poker hands (this is where the color rankings on the beans come into play.) The fun part about the blend is this is where that teamwork and cooperation aspect comes into play. You and your new buddy must both contribute at least 1 bean to your blend.  So, if you’re like me and want to make five of a kind you need to pay attention to what your team-mate has before you team up. If, as was the case on Sunday, I’m stocked with yellow and I team up with someone who doesn’t have yellow, the best I can hope to achieve is four of a kind.

That’s where the discussion comes in too, if you and your buddy don’t think you can make a blend that will break onto the Best Seller List, you might just want to research.

Yes, there is a Best Seller List. That is determined by the poker hand scale. The 5 best blends make it onto the list and score points for the players who blended them. They continue to score points each turn until they fall off the Best Seller List. The top spot earns 3 points, the next two spots earn two points, and the last two spots only earn 1 point. Your blends will degrade at the end of each turn, so your five of a kind will turn into a four of a kind, and then a three of a kind…and when it falls below a pair, it’s off the list. This is a unique concept and you’ve got to pay attention to it when you blend to create the best possible blends and stay high on the list.

One type of blend that people really crave is the Rainbow Blend! It’s built with 5 different beans and it never degrades. It’s in the upper levels of the poker hand ratings, so it’s generally a good blend to get, but more difficult to get than you’d think.

The second turn in Sunday’s game saw a rainbow blend, but Lesley killed the rainbow on the third turn using a Flavor card.

Blending was fraught with all kind of intensities on Sunday. Luke and TC (the designer of the game) attempted to make a bold and wonderful blend, Darrell had invested in it… and after several pulls from two different roasters if failed to make the Best Seller List. It’s probably around the 45-60 minute mark in the video. It was an awesome move even though it failed.

I’ll also note another tense turn later in the game when two sets of players tried to get five of a kind on the same turn. It was almost all three sets of players, but I talked Brian out of making an attempt. This would come back to bite me in the backside.

I used a flavor card, at one point, and made a five of a kind all my own without a partner. It was neat and I scored off that one for several turns. I did have two investors who also scored, but that’s part of the interaction of the game.

After all the blending and researching, those who blended get 1 research point to use on their tableaus. Anyone who researched is now given the option to move their player marker on the score track back any number of points to gain research points for each victory point they give up. This is a great way to alter your turn order for the next turn. If you want/need to go first, push yourself to the lowest scoring position. You get good things in return and don’t completely lose all the points, since moving on research tracks scores points at the end.

Sunday’s game looked low scoring for a good long while, but the fact is, we were just using the scores we had earned to make our final scores better. You have to score to keep moving and keep going back. You need to make the “money” to spend it. The more you spend, the better you are.

When a player reaches 21 points that triggers the end game.  Scores are tallied up, including last minute flavor cards and each player’s research track. A tight game might be determined by the research track, so keep an eye on your opponent’s tableaus.

In Sunday’s game, we had an awesome bold move at the end. Brian had chosen a Flavor card called “The Collector” which scored him points for each bean of a single color in his roaster.  He dumped his roaster and revealed 10 yellow beans, ending the game and giving him a lead as we reached final scoring. As a note, The Collector card will not work that way again. There will be a limit of 5 points on the card in future revisions, this is how it had worked in previous games as well (TC wanted to test something bold and different…and caffeinated!)

I won’t tell you who ultimately won the game, because I’m hoping you check out the video. I think checking out the video is really advise-able as we cover topics more in depth, like the degrading and resetting the blend slates/map board.

WATCH THE VIDEO!

Now, I know there’s a lot going on in the video and people tend to talk over people. Things are happening in layers and you may not see everything.  Remember this is a social game, kind of Euro Style-Party Game. I find that combination very appealing and I think you will too.

We had a lot of fun making this video because we love VivaJava: The Coffee Game. It was our first time doing a live event like this, and I know we made a lot of mistakes. We’re planning on doing another one, and we promise to improve for whatever game we choose next.

VivaJava: The Coffee Game is still on Kickstarter and it still needs your support! Go Pledge!

If you have any questions or comments about the game please feel free to use the comment section. You may also email them to me (John@cartrunk.net) or the publisher (Chris@dicehateme.com) . You can find us on twitter as well @cartrunkEnt, @dicehateme, or @puppyshogun (designer TC Petty III.)