Instead of watching a YouTube video for your next break at work, why not try playing a mini game that can win you vouchers and prizes from a café?
This game is brought to you by Littlepeople, in celebration of their third-year anniversary. It will be available up till the end of October, which is when up to ten winners will be announced.
The best part about the game, however, is the fact that even if you don’t get a high score on the leaderboard, a minimum of one point can still get you a voucher for a free coffee of your choice, soft-serve or cold brew tea.
But before we explore more of the game, let’s get to know the people who started the café behind it.
Behind The Counter
Littlepeople was founded by three trained baristas: Ang Bo Ling, Jan See Chen Ho and Jun Lim Pui Keun. (One year after its establishment, Ang and Jan parted ways with Littlepeople, and now Jun runs it on her own.)
They started it when they felt that their careers as baristas weren’t really going anywhere, according to Ang in an interview with Star2.
“In the F&B business, you cannot sustain yourself as a barista. Even though we joined competitions, we never won. Second place and third place is nothing special. It doesn’t really help you,” Ang said.
So, when the trio decided to expand their horizons and offer people quality food, coffee and tea, Littlepeople was born.
The café aims to put people at ease with its design that utilises light-coloured wood and natural daylight, along with being comfortably spacious.
Instead of your regular, rectangular coffee counter, Littlepeople has an open-ended hexagon counter which allows customers to watch the baristas at work. The shape of the counter makes it so that the large coffee machines are placed at an angle off to the side, which opens up the view to customers.
Food-wise, Littlepeople simply wants to achieve humble comfort food.
Jan, who is a chef-turned-barista, brought his culinary skills to the table and came up with a curated menu of mostly hand-made pasta dishes.
Besides pasta, you’ll also find avocado toast, mushroom soup, salads, and the café’s signature dessert dish, popiah ice cream.
Back To The Game
To play the game, all you need to do is have a Facebook account and head to their website, where you’ll be prompted by a pop-up to play the game.
The gameplay basically consists of you playing as the barista, making and serving customers their choice of drinks.
According to Littlepeople, the barista characters are designed to have their own personalities (but have the same goals), and the barista will change depending on when you play the game. Just like how baristas may work in shifts!
There is a menu in the bottom left corner you can refer to if you’re not sure how to make the drinks. The drink recipes range from long black to flat white and can be made hot or cold, depending on what your virtual customer orders.
On my first try, I was so eager to start playing that I didn’t look at the menu and ended up disappointing a lot of my customers. Needless to say, I scored pretty terribly on my first few tries.
Each session lasts for 60 seconds, where the goal is to serve as many customers the correct drink to earn points.
Opening up the menu to check the drink recipe does not put the timer on hold, so it might take you a few tries to familiarise yourself with the recipes before you can serve faster.
Once the 60 seconds is up, you’ll be brought to a page where you can review your score. If you’re satisfied enough with your score, you can get your voucher.
If you’re a little more kiasu, you can keep playing until you pop up on the leaderboard, where the top 10 players and their scores are displayed. At the time of writing, the highest score is 445. On my eighth or so try, I managed to score 115 points, so I don’t think it’s too difficult at all.
Everyone Loves Winning
As mentioned in the beginning, even if you aren’t in the top 10, you can still win vouchers that I would say are quite generous.
The vouchers can only be redeemed within the month of October, and all you have to do is present the screen of your e-voucher at the café. However, do note that you can only redeem one voucher throughout the whole month.
For the winner with the highest score, the first prize entitles you to a month of free coffee through an exclusive voucher and member card. The countdown of 30 days begins when you place your first free coffee order.
Second prize is RM100 worth of credits to be spent in the café, while third prize is RM50 in credits for the same purpose. Winners in fourth to tenth place get RM10 worth of credits in their member cards.
While the game is fun to play and definitely draws attention, Littlepeople has a bigger reason for creating it. They wanted to use gamification as a way to educate customers on how baristas work, as well as help them understand specialty coffee better.
I’m not sure if the game taught me anything more than the basic ingredients of some coffee recipes, but it’s still pleasant to play during my free time.
- You can read more about other F&B startups here.
Featured Image Credit: Littlepeople
