How to play OvO Café: rules, controls and tips

What is OvO Café?

OvO Café is a cosy café tycoon. OvO customers walk in, show an order bubble and wait while a patience ring around it slowly turns from green to amber to red. You start with one coffee machine and a goal bar that asks you to serve five customers. Every serve pays beans, the café money, plus hearts. Beans buy everything in the game, while hearts add up to your score on the leaderboard. Pancakes, orange juice and strawberry cake unlock as you earn more, and each new item sells for more than the last. There are no levels to fail: the café keeps running, and you decide what to upgrade next.

How do you serve a customer?

The tips at the top of the screen walk you through your first serves. It is two taps per order.

1. 1Step 1: Tap the machine for the item in the order bubble. A progress bar runs and the drink or plate pops up above the machine. You can also tap the customer to start their order.
2. 2Step 2: Tap the customer, or the ready item, to serve it. The order flies over and the beans and hearts float up to the counters at the top.
3. 3Step 3: Serve fast. A quick serve earns an extra heart, VIP OvOs pay more, and serves close together build a combo that raises your tips.
4. 4Step 4: Watch the patience ring. When it turns red the customer starts to shake, and if nobody serves them they leave sad.

What should you spend beans on?

Open the Upgrade sheet first. Upgrading a machine raises its price per item, and at certain levels it doubles the price and gets faster. Unlock the next menu item as soon as you can afford it, since it earns more per serve. Staff OvOs are the big step: each one makes and serves one station by itself and keeps earning while you are away, up to 4 hours of away earnings (8 with OvO Pass). The Décor sheet has cosy seats, which bring customers in faster and add room for more of them, and a tip jar that raises every tip. Goals give stars and beans, so check the goal bar whenever you have a spare moment.

How do the Sweet Bakery, Moon Tea House and Franchise work?

Stars from goals open new shops. With 15 Café stars and enough beans you can open the Sweet Bakery, with its own four stations at much higher prices, and opening it makes every price in your shops worth more. The Moon Tea House comes next, once the Bakery has 14 stars and you have enough beans, and raises prices again. The Shops button lets you jump between them, and staff in the other shops keep working in the background. After 14 stars at the Moon Tea House you can Franchise: your shops and beans start over, but you keep a permanent bean bonus that grows with every Franchise, a gold star and all your hearts.

Tips to grow your café faster

Check which item is Today x2 each day: that special pays double, so upgrade its machine first. Collect the free daily gift. Hire staff before you buy lots of small upgrades, because staff earn while the game is closed. When you come back, the Welcome back card shows what your staff earned, and you can watch a short video to double it if you like. The Boost button spends 40 tokens on one hour of earnings, which is handy right before an expensive unlock. On a tablet or computer in landscape, the buttons move to a dock on the side, as in the picture at the top.

Watch

Questions