Before heading off to the Q&A session with Jay, we managed to squeak in one more game and my request was Guatemala Café. Jay had a copy of the German version and followers of this game (and Eggertspiele) will know that they packed some coffee beans into the game's draw bag so that while you are playing the game, you get the aroma of fresh coffee beans. A cute idea (although not appealing to me since I am both not a coffee drinker and I dislike the smell of it), but one that Jay isn't following through on for the US version. He noted that he'd rather not run afoul of the FDA by selling something that could be consumed, even though his counterparts at Eggertspiele insist that they are inedible. I can appreciate Jay's concern and, honestly, I'm fine with the lack of real beans.
But forget the Smell-O-Rama aspect of the game, how does it play? Very nicely, I'd say. GC is a rare game in that there are two boards. However, only one is really a play-board - the other is the staging area where you can draw play pieces from the column that the master pawn is on. On your turn, you must move the MP from 1 to 3 spaces and then you select up to three items you want to buy - be they roasting houses, workers, ships, roads or scoring markers. When you first look at this massive board plus the second one full of fields where you will place them, it may seem daunting and complex.
In actuality, the play of the game is pretty easy. You are trying to place similarly-colored roasters and adjacent workers to score in one of five colors when someone takes a scoring marker. If you can use roads (which come into play when the other pieces are taken - a nice touch) to connect to the docks through one of the roads, you can get bonus multipliers by placing similarly-colored boats down there. The roads are specific lines with multiple slabs for roasters placed by different players so you can either piggyback on someone else's work (and connect to the same docks) or compete with them directly and try to limit their ability to score big by placing your own boats down there. Workers add on to roasters and depending on how close to the docks your setup is, you pay more or less. The balancing act here, including the fact that you can specialize in one of five types of coffee, is where you find the fun. I managed to pull a solid victory by using only three types, including piggybacking on someone else's efforts with the white coffee, doing a solid job of the same for less money with black and then winning when Bernie managed a huge score at the end with the natural coffee type. He almost caught up but I shot straight over the line created by nearly constant scoring.
Ah, the scoring. So, you can select scoring tiles to get more points in the color of your choice - that is, for everyone with a roaster of that color with a corresponding worker connected to it. However, this is also how you can refill your coffers with eight more pesos - in face, this the only way! So, scoring is encouraged a lot and each time you score, you put the scoring tile on the score track. Since the winner is the one that reaches the end of the scoring track first, this accelerates the game as it goes. I love this mechanic since it means you can affect the length of the game, too.
Guatemala Cafe is a nice game that I enjoyed. It comes with a whole lot of wood and although the basic game provides a standard set up for new players, you can also randomly set up the pieces for a more varied game. Of course, this option could allow for a player to get too much on a line for a single turn.
