Bubble King

• Designer: Daryl Chow
• Publisher: Origami / Homosapiens Lab
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 6+
• Time: 15 minutes
• Played with copy provided by publisher

Do you have the smarts, guile, and speed to serve all your customers with style? In Bubble King, which was first released as Kopi King, create your favorite drinks from Teh Tarik to Milo Dinosaur, with all of the nostalgia and none of the calories. Fulfill drink orders by snatching ingredient cards in real time, and decide whether you want to complete quick simple drinks or go for the epic beverages. The player with the fastest hands and the fastest mind will be crowned the Bubble King!

The deck of 105 ingredient cards is splayed facedown on the table and shuffled into a messy pile.  The 30 order cards are shuffled and a display of 3 face up order cards is made.  Additionally, each player gets 2 face up order cards dealt in front of them.

The game is played in real time.  In the first phase, players try to complete orders.  All players simultaneously search for ingredients by picking up face down cards from the table and examining them.  If they find one that matches one of their order cards, you may place it on the Order that requires it.  Be sure to look at what type of order it is!  If it is a delivery order, denoted with a paper bag in the bottom right, you have to put the ingredient card face down (and then remember what ingredients have been played there).  Otherwise, you place the ingredient face up on the order.

When an order is deemed complete, the player shouts out the name of the drink, collects the ingredient cards and the order card and places them on their scoring pile.  They then take a new order card from the market – either one of the three face up Orders or the top face down order from the deck.  If you take a face up Order, replenish the display to three cards afterwards.

When a player has completed their 5th order, they announce this and all players immediately stop filling orders.  The game now moves into the scoring phase.  If you have an order exactly correct, you score the value of the order card.  Otherwise, you score $5 for each correct ingredient and lose $5 for each incorrect or missing ingredient.  The player with the most money earned wins the game.  There is no tiebreaker.  Interestingly, the rules suggest that the player with the least money should make or buy a drink for the winner : )

My thoughts on the game

Bubble King is a fast paced frenetic real time game.  Players are constantly pulling at the splay of cards in the center, trying to fill their orders.   The cost (VPs) for the drinks is… interesting.  I thought the designer was from Singapore but those prices don’t make sense.  Homosapiens Lab is from Taiwan, but the New Taiwanese dollar isn’t worth enough.  Maybe the game is set in Hong Kong?  Anyways, it doesn’t really matter – you just need to have the values on the card to generate your points at the end.

The artwork on the cards is cute, and it’s fun to pretend you’re a barista (or whatever a bubble drink maker is called).  There’s lots of fun yelling out the drinks, and at least for me, trying to figure out what some of the drinks really are.  We added to the theme by getting boba drinks to consume while we played.

The game is a light filler, and it works OK.  One thing I didn’t like is that some of the order cards are “to-go” orders where you play your ingredients face down to the order and then have to remember.  The game setup just gives you random orders, and if you get face-down orders, you’re at a disadvantage, and the VP rewards don’t seem to scale with the increased difficulty.  But, again, it’s a ten minute filler, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

We had fun playing it, and it was a nice break from a day of longer, more crunchy games at Basement con.  Not one I’d request or pull off the shelf, but one I’d play if someone else asked.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor