Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim Early Access Review – Run Your Cozy Coffee Joint

We have seen the cooking genre constantly evolving within the cozy genre, but what we were truly missing was a good cafe simulator that focuses on the art of coffee-making. Coffee Beans Dev’s Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim, currently in Early Access, handles the execution of this concept really well, and has quite a few mechanics to keep you engaged.

Tailside doesn’t overload you too much at the start. You will first practice making espresso untill you are introduced to new drink variants, including mocha, hot chocolate and many more. If you forget a recipe, you can just take a look at it in your recipe book. The game does a good job of getting you familiar with one coffee type before unlocking more as you level up. My initial concern that it would feel too repetitive to keep quickly making the same coffee was addressed as soon as the second type was unlocked, along with some new equipment to make it. All drinks are made at the same station, but just with more equipment and ingredients. This makes things simple, as you won’t have to run around to make all these different drinks, and can just relax while brewing them. 

The game is elaborate when it comes to coffee making. You must first grind the beans three times and then you need to heat the beans or an additive without rushing the process. Even the cups are different for specific coffee variants. If you are making a Latte, you will also be drawing art on the coffee. You can’t really mess this up either, as you only need to trace the cream on a projected shape. Filling a shape completely gives you more bonuses. Tailside also takes into account the quality of the coffee you will be serving, which adds much more depth to the gameplay. You need to sort the bad coffee beans out from the good ones in a short minigame; only the best brown ones are fit for the consumption of your customers. You will also need to stock up on the coffee ingredients every day, and refill them when you run out.

Not only do you have to make coffee, but you also need to work on the layout of your restaurant using the build mode. The shop has a good variety of furniture available in different styles, which will help you create your desired ambience for the cafe. If you are tired of seeing the same surroundings inside your cafe, you will also unlock the Terrace as you progress. It gives a better view of yourself and the customers, and you get additional bonuses as well. 

You can also make upgrades to your shop by increasing your storage capacity, which makes your tools much more efficient. For example, if you upgrade your grinder, you can have enough coffee for more cups, and you won’t have to repeat similar steps when you are overloaded with a lot of orders. A cafe is incomplete without pastries, so you can also upgrade it to sell some.

Tailside is a cozy game, so do not expect it to challenge you. The order tickets above your head will not disappear after a while, nor will your customers get impatient. So you can easily take the time to do some side work. Though there are a couple of fussy customers who will make a mess, so you will need to clean up as well. However, you will have a daily goal as an incentive to work harder. It adds a monetary bonus to your total revenue after you end the day. There is a collectables feature in the form of plushy coins, which you earn by serving customers can use in the gatcha machine to get adorable plushies for yourself. You’ve gotta just collect them all, so you feel more motivated to complete a full day. 

You will also meet other quirky animals who would love to give your coffee a try. There are a total of ten characters to unlock who all play a role in your story of developing a cafe, while also dropping some packages and decorations for you as presents. You get dialogue options when responding to them, which makes the interactions feel more personal. Each morning when you wake up, you will also get daily news, which adds depth to what’s really happening around the town.

Overall, Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim feels like the most relaxing game you can play after a busy day. While it’s still in Early Access, the gameplay is simple, but there is a lot of depth to certain features to keep things interesting. The game rewards you when you complete goals, but you don’t face any consequences if you don’t – so it doesn’t feel tedious to play at all. 

Rabiya reviewed Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim on PC in Early Access with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and will not be changed.