Retro Barista

Josie wanted to make a game about running a real-feeling little shop after watching Coffee Talk over my shoulder. We deliberately kept the customer logic dumber than that game's — no branching dialogue, no relationships — and focused on the satisfying loop of read the ticket, build the drink, hand it over. It's the busywork part of a coffee sim, but the busywork is the part that's actually fun.

A couple of things help. The brewing station ingredients always go in the same order on the ticket as they should in the cup, so train your eye to read top-to-bottom and just click in that order. If a customer's patience meter is running out, serve them something close — a partial tip beats a walked-out zero. And don't sleep on the decor upgrades. They look cosmetic but they actually reduce the patience-decay rate, which compounds fast once you're juggling three or four orders.

Things she learned building it

The hardest part was the state machine for the customer queue — getting them to spawn, wait, react, and leave without overlapping each other or breaking layout. Josie ended up writing it as a simple array of "customer slots" with a per-slot status, which is the kind of thing experienced devs reach for instinctively but is a real lightbulb moment the first time. If you like cosy sim loops, take a look at Lemonade Stand next — it's a more numbers-driven take on the same idea.