How much cosy is too much cosy?

Scott Almes' latest wallet game just skirts the edges of over-cosy, mainly by being compelling and a tiny bit infuriating.

I don’t play solo very much. Actually, let me rephrase that- I don’t play solo on a tabletop much. Anyone who plays video games or mobile games is a solo gamer, although most of us don’t think of ourselves in those terms. But setting up a whole board game to play alone feels like too much effort to me, most of the time.¹

So I tell myself that the reason I don’t play solo is that I prize the social interaction of group play, but A Nice Cuppa has made me reflect that really, it’s because I can’t be bothered to do set-up unless there is someone else around to enjoy the result/ crush me mercilessly at tile-laying.²

A Nice Cuppa is, to someone not familiar with the variety of card games now available, a surprising thing. It is tiny- part of the wallet games range from ButtonShy games which has weaved magic from the constraint of designing with 18 cards or fewer.

It is designed only to be played solo- it is, essentially, a form of solitaire. And as a game it is something rather unique.

You start the games with two lines of cards. The tea cards, numbered 1 to 7, depict the ritual of making a really good cup of tea, from boiling the water to sipping the brew. But they are randomised and out of order to start with- your job is to order them by the end of the game, so that your tea can be properly enjoyed.

The engine for doing this, as well as the source of the difficulties in doing so, is contained in the second row, of worry cards. Every turn you turn one of these over, and resolve the cards in the worry row that are face-up. Each worry card allows you to move the tea cards around in a way that can be helpful in their proper ordering. But here’s the catch. You have to make the moves specified on the worry cards, whether they are helpful or not. So you will find yourself with perfectly arranged cards, only to find that you have to take a card from one end of the row and put it at the other, ruining the sequence.

Fortunately, you can get rid of worry cards by making sure the Tea cards are above them when they are ‘focused’- being above a worry card flips the Tea card between focused (face-up) and distracted (face-down), so the way to get rid of an annoying worry is to move a distracted card above it, so when it flips, it rids you of the worry. It’s very neat- the decision space is quite small, but you have just enough control over the movements of the cards that you will wonder how you could have done better when, inevitably, you make an imperfect cup of tea.

This isn’t really a game you can win or lose³, more come closer with practice to a platonic ideal of tea. It not always possible to ensure a good score- the last worry card you turn over can easily scupper your plans- but there is definitely an improvement curve to the game. And when you have made a substandard cuppa, the urge to try again is strong. After all, the game takes only a few minutes, and seconds to set up…

The game is definitely marketed as a relaxing pastime, as a meditative way to conquer worries. Whether that is how you would experience it depends on what counts as relaxing for you. If what you like is turning over nicely decorated cards without much thought or tension, like conventional solitaire, this isn’t the game for you- but if you want 10 minutes of absorption in an intriguing puzzle, then it’s a very effective way to banish more substantive anxiety for a period.

And is it cosy? Well, yes. The artwork by Andrea Ivetic Vicai is appealing and evocative, and the whole thing takes slightly less time than drinking a cup of tea itself, so I think it fits into that very ‘now’ aesthetic.

And cosy doesn’t have to be boring, or unchallenging. I think A Nice Cuppa succeeds because it is absorbing enough to allow the player a brief respite from *gestures at the world* all this. So maybe I don’t play games for the other people, but to shut out the other other people. Maybe.

So, overall, I will forgive the use of cuppa, a word that I have never heard a British person under 70 use, because this is a very good, very chill time. And one day, I will make a really, really good cup of tea.

1. I make an exception for Marvel Champions, mainly because I am the only person in my house who likes it.

2. I am really, cosmically bad at tile-laying games. Well, compared to my wife and son.

3. Though strictly you can ‘lose’, which seems unnecessary