Welcome to Monster Cafe!

Here are the rules you need to know in order to play the game successfully:

Goal of the Game

I’m excited to tell you about Monster Cafe, an exciting game where you have to feed hungry monsters. Your goal is to keep the monsters happy by preparing and serving them the food they desire.

Customer Requests

When a monster comes to the café, they will tell you what kind of food they want to eat. It’s important to pay attention to their requests because each monster has different tastes and preferences.

Preparing the Food

Once you know what the monster wants to eat, you can start preparing the food. You can find the ingredients in the kitchen by looking in the fridge and the pantry. Each monster has a specific recipe, so make sure to follow it carefully!

Serving the Food

After you have finished preparing the food, it’s time to serve it to the monster. Take the plate of food and bring it to the monster’s table. Make sure to serve it quickly, as monsters can get impatient!

Earning Points

When a monster finishes their meal and leaves the café happy, you will earn points. The happier the monster, the more points you will receive. You can use these points to unlock new recipes and ingredients to make the game even more exciting!

Game Over

If a monster leaves the café without eating or leaves unhappy, you will lose points. If you lose too many points, the game will be over.

Time Management

Be careful with your time! You only have a limited amount of time to fulfill each monster’s request. If you don’t serve them in time, they will leave unhappy.

Have Fun!

Now that you know all the rules, it’s time to start playing Monster Cafe! Have fun and enjoy serving all the hungry monsters!

Remember:

The key to success in this game is to pay attention to each monster’s request, follow the recipes carefully, and serve the food quickly. By doing these things, you will make the monsters happy and earn lots of points. Good luck and have a great time!

Gather as many monsters as you can and match them with their meals to rack up points. Just make sure not to choose any hungry monsters, as they’ll deduct from your score.

Setting Up the Game

Note: These instructions are for four players. Instructions for two and three players can be found at the end.

• Separate the cards into two decks based on their backs.
• Mix up the 16 table cards and place four face-up (with meals displayed) in the center of the play area. Leave enough space between them. Keep the remaining cards in a stack face-down on the side.
• Mix up the 60 monster cards and create a face-down stack in the middle of the four tables.
• To begin the game, each player grabs one monster card from the middle and shows it to everyone else. If you happen to pick lemon sorbet, put it back and grab a different card.

Did you know that each monster has a favorite food? You can identify their preferred food by looking at the icon in the top right corner of their card. Isn’t that interesting?

Game Play

Welcome to Monster Cafe! I’ll walk you through how the game works. It’s pretty simple and loads of fun!

1. First things first, let’s decide who goes first. The one who can brag about eating something really gross most recently gets the honor. If you can’t decide, just pick someone to start.
2. Each round, the game moves to the left. So once we know who starts, the player to their left will be up next.
3. Now, let’s get into the actions you can take on your turn:
4. Draw a card: You can grab the top card from the center pile. Pick it up and keep it handy.
5. Clear a table: If you see a table with at least one monster and feel like it’s time to make your exit, go ahead and clear that table. Leave the round, my friend!

Well, that’s pretty much it! It’s your turn now. Choose one of the actions and let the Monster Cafe adventure begin!

Pick a Card

If you want to seat a monster at a table, simply draw the top card from the center pile. But watch out for the lemon sorbet card (see below). After drawing a card, take a look at the tables in the playing area and choose one where you want to place it.

Each table has four seats, shown on the card’s sides. As long as there’s an empty seat at a table, you can place the card next to any open side. This will end your turn.

Monsters That Love to Eat Anything

When it comes to eating, Anything Eaters are a wild bunch. They have no restrictions and will happily devour any food they come across. Picture an Anything Eater, and you can plop it down at any empty table.

Now, here’s the twist – the person who clears that table gets to choose any food from their collection to associate with the Anything Eater. It’s like giving the little creature a favorite dish!

Here’s a strategy tip: If you’re feeling unsure about where to place your Anything Eater, don’t worry! You can wait until the end of the game to make that decision.

Lemon Sorbet

Hey there, ever noticed how monsters cringe at the tangy zing of lemon sorbet? Scaredy-cats!

So here’s the deal: if you’re lucky enough to draw this card, you’ve gotta gather up all the monsters of one type that you’ve already collected and send them packing to the discard pile. And the lemon sorbet card? Yep, it goes there too.

Once you’ve done all that, it’s officially the end of your turn. Well, unless you happen to be the last one standing in the game. Then, it’s a whole different ball game.

Time for a Cleanup

If you don’t want to draw a card, you have another option. You can choose to claim a table and all the seated monsters next to it. Just make sure there’s at least one monster on the table. But remember, you can’t claim an empty table.

When you claim a table, you take the table card and any seated monster cards. Put them face up in front of you. This shows that you’re done for the round and can’t do anything else, like draw cards or claim another table.

Ending a Round

The other players keep taking turns, either drawing cards or claiming tables, until everyone has cleared one table. When this happens, the round is over.

To start a new round, put four more table cards in the middle of the playing area. Keep the cards you collected in front of you from the previous rounds.

When it’s time for the next round, the person who cleared the last table gets things started. This round is just like the one before.

A Few Things to Keep in Mind:

• If all the tables are already full, you can’t draw a card. Instead, you have to clear a table.
• If you’re the only one left in a round and there are empty seats at a table, you can keep drawing cards until the table is full or until you want to clear it and end the round.
• Every once in a while, there might not be any cards left to draw. In that case, everyone who’s still playing has to clear a table.

The End of the Game

Once the fourth round is over and all the tables have been cleared, the game comes to a close. Now, it’s time to match up your monsters with the table cards that correspond to them.

Each table will nourish all the monsters in your collection that match it. For every monster that gets fed, you earn one point. But if a monster is lucky enough to be fed by two plates of the same food, you get a two-point bonus!

However, be careful. You’ll lose one point for each monster that remains unfed. Don’t worry about the food cards that didn’t manage to feed a monster—they won’t be penalized.

The player with the highest total score is crowned the winner of the game!

An Example of Scoring:

At the end of the game, I had a bunch of cards. Let’s take a look. I got 3 points for the Sludge Eaters, and an additional 4 points for the Stinky Sock Eater and Anything Eater because I collected both Stinky Sock Stews, which double the value of matching monsters.

Now, I have to subtract 1 point for each unfed monster, which amounts to -3. Luckily, I don’t lose any points for the unused Spaghetti and Eyeballs. So, my total score is 3 + 4 – 3, which equals 4.

Let’s talk about the rules for a 3-player game. Before we start playing, we need to take out two complete sets of regular monsters from the monster deck. For example, we can remove all six “Eyeball Eaters” and all six “Stinky Sock Eaters.” We also need to remove the matching table cards that feed those monsters, which makes four cards in total. These cards will be out of play. Now, we can play as usual, but with only three tables per round instead of four.

Lastly, let’s discuss the rules for a 2-player game. It’s quite similar to the 3-player game, with a few adjustments. We still need to remove two complete sets of regular monsters from the monster deck, along with the matching table cards. However, in a 2-player game, we deal only three tables per round instead of four.