How to Play Order Overload Café, a game where you’ll realise how bad your memory actually is.
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Read the Rules
The aim of the game
In Order Overload Café, you’ll work as a team, trying to remember a list of increasingly confusing orders.
To set up
- Give everyone a sales person token with the smiley side up and a face up, and special ability card at random. For a 2 player game, take 2 of each.
- Shuffle the order cards and put them face down on the table.
- Line up the level chips in numerical order, with the victory condition chip at the end; this shows how many players need to empty their hand of cards for you to complete a level.
To play the game
1. Read the order
To begin, pick a player to be the order taker, they draw cards from the order pile equal to the level, times the number of players. For example; at level 1 in a 4 player game, I’d draw 4 cards and for level 2, I’d draw 8 cards.
Then, they read the cards out loud in order, without showing anyone the text on the front. Finally, they shuffle them and deal them out equally between each player. You may not look at anyone else’s cards, only your own.
2. Remember it!
Now it’s time to remember it all! Starting with the player to the left of the order taker, take it in turns to guess just 1 item from the order.
When a guess is made, go around the table in a clockwise direction, each player stating whether they have that item or not. The first player that does, places it face up on the table.
If no one has it, the guesser turns their salesperson chip face down.
After you’ve attempted a guess, whether you were successful or not, the player on your left takes a guess.
- Your guess is only successful if you name a card still in someone else’s hand.
- You may name an item you have, but your guess is only successful if someone else has it too.
- If you name an item that more than one person has, only the first person who has it puts it down.
- You may not attempt to let other people know what cards you have.
- If you don’t have a face up salesperson token, you can’t make a guess.
Use your ability card
At any point during a game, you may use your special ability card to help your team, even if you don’t have a face up salesperson chip. Once your ability is used, flip it over. It can’t be used for the remainder of the game.
Game end and scoring
Keep going around the table, taking it in turns to name an item from the order, until either:
Everyone has run out of face up sales person tokens- in which case you’ve failed.
OR, as many people have emptied their hand onto the table as is required to complete the level, as stated on the victory chip: Thats 1 person in a 2 player game, 2 people in a 3-4 player game and 3 people in a 5-6 player game.
If you fail a level, boohoo! If you pass a level, move onto the next one:
- Turn over the level chip you completed.
- Flip your salesperson tokens back up.
- Return the order cards to the pile and shuffle them.
The order taker moves one space to the left and starts a new, larger order, drawing as many cards as the level you are on, times the number of players.
That's Order Overload Café, where you’ll test the power of your collective memory.
Enjoy!