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The harbour is busy, the customers are hungry, and somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, an octopus is trying to run a bakery. That already sounds like a good start for a card game. In Octobuns, players are octopus bakers collecting ingredients, making buns, and completing orders for the local harbour visitors.
It looks very cute at first, and yes, it is cute. But the game is not only about matching some fruit symbols and calling it a day. Your bakery is only a small 3 by 3 grid, and that tiny bit of space becomes surprisingly important. You’ll place ingredients, turn some of them into buns, and try to arrange everything in the right order for your customers. That sounds simple, but after a few turns your bakery can start to feel less like a cosy little shop and more like an octopus trying to fold laundry with eight arms. Helpful, yes. Organised? Not always.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Mirthe De Clerck
🎨 Artwork: Zhenya Lyapina
🏢 Publisher: Jolly Dutch (review copy provided)
Gameplay overview
The goal of Octobuns is to earn the most coins by completing customer orders. Each player has their own bakery, shown as a 3 by 3 grid of cards. This is where you place ingredients, make buns, and try to line everything up so customers actually want what you’re serving. At the start of the game, each player also gets a starting card, which gives them a one-time extra action to take an ingredient directly from one of the supply stacks. It’s a small help, but in a game where the three open ingredients can sometimes be completely useless for your plans, that extra draw can matter.
On your turn, you choose one main action. You can take one of the open ingredients, reserve an order, exchange a bun for an ingredient from the discard pile, or clean up your bakery by moving or discarding one or two ingredient or bun cards. During clean up, you may also discard reserved orders, which is useful when a plan from two turns ago no longer makes any sense.
When you take an ingredient, you place it into your bakery. If your bakery is still empty, you can place it wherever you want, but after that, new ingredients need to be placed next to cards that are already there, either horizontally or vertically.
Some ingredients can be stacked to make buns. Each bun type needs a specific pair of ingredients, shown on the ingredient cards. When you make a bun, the two ingredient cards are discarded and replaced by the matching bun card. These bun cards are needed for many customer orders, and they also score 1 coin each if they are still in your bakery at the end of the game. You can’t just rearrange everything whenever you want, so where you place things matters quite a lot.
Orders show a sequence of ingredients and buns. To complete an order, those items need to be next to each other in your bakery and in the correct order. That’s the little idea that makes the game more than just collecting the right symbols. You might have exactly the cards you need, but if they are in the wrong places, your customer is still not impressed.
Instead of completing only the visible orders, you can also reserve orders. You may reserve one of the face-up orders or take the top card from one of the order draw piles. Reserved orders are placed next to your bakery, and only you can complete them. You can have up to two reserved orders.
After your action, and after using any bonus actions, you may complete one order. Completed orders give you coins, and some also give a bonus action. These bonus actions can be used during your turn, and you can use more than one if you have them. After using a bonus, you flip that order card so it’s clear the bonus has been spent.
The game ends when one player completes five orders. Everyone gets the same number of turns, then players count the coins on their completed orders. Any bun cards still in your bakery are worth 1 coin each. The player with the most coins wins.
Artwork, components, and visual design
OctoBuns comes in a small box and is made up entirely of cards. You’ll find ingredient cards, bun cards, small and large order cards, starting cards, and the rulebook. It feels like the kind of small box you can easily bring along, which fits a game about quick bakery orders quite nicely.
The first thing that made us smile was the harbour full of hungry animal customers. You’ll see characters like walruses, seagulls, foxes, cats, and polar bears waiting for their orders, and that gives the order cards a bit of life. I like that, because it makes the game feel less abstract without making the rules harder.
The ingredient cards are also fun because they don’t just show fruit floating on a plain background. You see octopus tentacles preparing strawberries, kiwis, oranges, coconuts, pineapples, and walnuts. It helps sell the idea that this bakery is actually being run by a very busy octopus. With eight arms, there’s really no excuse for slow service. The bun cards follow the same style and show the finished food in a cute and clear way.
The recipe icons at the bottom of the ingredient cards are easy to read, which is important because you’ll check them often. The customer order cards are clear too, with the requested items, coins, and bonus actions separated well enough. The production is modest, but for a small bakery puzzle, I don’t think it needs more than cards, clear icons, and artwork with personality.
Our experience
In our first play, we placed ingredients a bit too freely. We had that familiar feeling of, “This will probably work out later.” Spoiler: it did not always work out later. There were turns where I had exactly the ingredients I needed, but they were sitting in completely the wrong places, looking very innocent while ruining my plans.
That’s where the game started to win me over. Completing an order feels good because you actually prepared it inside your bakery. You didn’t just collect the right icons and hand them in. You had to make the order appear in the right shape, next to the right cards, and in the right order. That made the little bakery feel like your storage, your recipe area, and your order counter all at once. When it finally worked, it felt earned, especially after a few turns of trying to keep enough space open without making a complete mess of it.
The game also pushes you to get moving, because the end is triggered when someone completes five orders. You can’t spend forever making the perfect bakery, but you also don’t want to rush every small order just because you can. We had a few moments where someone completed something quickly, while another player waited a bit longer for an order with more coins. That choice between getting an order done now or holding out for something better gave our plays a nice little pull without making the game feel heavy.
For us, the reserve action became more important than expected. At first, I saw it mostly as a way to protect an order from other players, but in practice, it also gave me a plan to follow. When I reserved an order that already matched what I was building, it helped a lot. But since reserving costs your main action and you can only hold two orders, it’s not something you want to do without thinking.
I also enjoyed the bonus actions. They give you a little extra push at the right moment, without taking over the whole turn. Sometimes grabbing one extra ingredient or taking something from the supply was exactly what I needed. It’s not a huge effect, but when that extra ingredient suddenly completes the line your customer wants, it feels very satisfying. The clean up action became more useful after the first play too. At first, it feels a bit painful to spend a turn moving or discarding cards, because you want new ingredients, orders, and progress. But when your bakery gets stuck, cleaning up can save you from wasting several turns. Sometimes your bakery really needs a good tidy-up.
The part that not everyone will enjoy is the card draw. Sometimes the open ingredients just don’t help you. You can work around that a bit, and the face-down supply and bonus actions help, but there were moments where we had to adapt more than we wanted. Sometimes you’re not making the perfect bun empire. Sometimes you’re just looking at the market and thinking, “Well, we’re making kiwi problems today.” The player interaction is also friendly and fairly gentle. You compete for ingredients and orders, and you can reserve something before another player gets it, but there is no heavy blocking or direct conflict. That suited our plays, though groups who like messing with each other may find it a bit too polite.
Overall, we had a good time with it. Our plays didn’t drag, and most turns gave us something small but useful to solve inside the bakery. I especially liked that the cute theme doesn’t just sit on top of the game. You really are trying to run this tiny bakery, and sometimes that means making a lovely bun, and sometimes it means admitting that your bakery layout is a disaster and needs fixing.
Our thoughts
I think Octobuns works best when you treat it as a small bakery puzzle, not as a game that wants to fill the whole evening. The game is at its best when it gives you one small problem, lets you solve it, and then moves on. The mechanisms are familiar, of course. You collect cards, complete orders, watch what is available in the middle of the table, and race toward the end of the game. What makes it work is that the orders give those familiar parts a clear purpose, so even a simple ingredient card can matter because of where and when you use it.
I wouldn’t tell people that Octobuns reinvents the card game bakery, if such a bakery exists. It is more about making its small set of rules matter. The rules are easy to explain because almost everything comes back to one question: can you get the right ingredients and buns next to each other? You can play quite casually, but the game still punishes you a little when you throw ingredients wherever they fit. For families, casual players, or mixed groups where not everyone wants a long rules explanation, that is a real strength.
For more experienced players, I think Octobuns will work best as a lighter game between heavier ones, rather than something to explore over and over for months. The different orders and ingredient cards create variety, but the game will probably not keep surprising you after many plays. That’s not a big problem, as long as you go in with the right expectations. It’s the kind of game I’d bring out when I want something quick, friendly, and easy to teach, not when I want a long evening of deep planning.
For us, Octobuns earns its spot as a light game I’d actually bring out again. It is not essential for every collection, and it won’t be the game for players who want strong confrontation or a lot of long-term control. But as a cheerful small-box game where you’re constantly trying to make fruit, buns, and animal orders fit into nine spaces, I think it does its job well. I’d happily play it again, especially with families, casual players, or anyone who enjoys looking at a tiny grid and saying, “Wait, if I move this bun here…”
And if an octopus is willing to make me buns in a busy harbour, I’m not going to be rude about it. I’ll take one for the road.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Jolly Dutch.
Jolly Dutch also gave me a personal affiliate code: TABLETOPPING.
With this code, you get 10% off a yearly Jolly Club subscription during the first year. In the Netherlands, that means the subscription goes from €60 to €54. The Jolly Club is currently available only in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the Belgian version is slightly more expensive because of shipping.
If you decide to use the code, I receive a small commission. No pressure at all, of course. Just sharing it in case you were already considering it.
More info: Jolly Club
