How It Plays
To set up, you shuffle the tea-making step cards and lay them out in a row. Beneath them, you place a row of worry cards face down. The goal? Brew the perfect cup by scoring 12 or more points by the time all the worry cards have been revealed. If everything is in the correct order and you’ve managed to dispel your worries, congratulations—you’ve made the perfect cuppa!
The best I’ve managed so far, perhaps reflecting my lack of enthusiasm for tea, is “weak tea” (a score of 6 to 8 points).
The main mechanic revolves around flipping over a worry card each round and carrying out its action, which typically involves moving or swapping cards in the tea row. With each new round, additional worry cards are revealed, increasing the number of disruptions to your carefully arranged tea steps. However, worries can be mitigated by gaining focus.
Each tea card is double-sided, starting on its “focused” side. If a tea card ends a round above a worry, it flips to its “distracted” side. If it lands above a worry again in a future round, it flips back to focused, allowing you to remove the worry card beneath it. The game continues until there are no more worry cards to reveal. At that point, you tally your score, gaining points for correctly ordered steps but losing points for any remaining worries.
A Perfect Lunchtime Solo?
Absolutely. As a wallet game, A Nice Cuppa is highly portable, setting up in seconds with a small table footprint. A full game takes just a few minutes, yet I often find myself playing multiple rounds back-to-back, convinced I can do better next time! Plus, if you ever master the perfect brew, the game includes two expansions to keep things interesting.
If you enjoy solo puzzle games, this is a fantastic addition to your collection—tea lover or not!
Lunch time solo 