Scoop Shop

Scoop Shop puts you behind the counter of a striped ice cream kiosk on a sunny promenade, with the sea over your shoulder and a queue in front of you. A customer asks for a cone: three scoops, bottom to top, maybe sprinkles and a cherry. Tap the tub you want and a scoop drops from the nozzle; slide the cone left and right to catch it. Land it dead centre and the tower sits straight. Land it off to one side and it sits off to one side, and the next scoop has to live with that.

The stacking is proper physics, not a snap-to-grid. Scoops are soft: they squash when they land, the tower sways when you move, and every crooked landing adds a little more lean until the whole lot creaks over and slaps onto the worktop. A waffle cone is the wobbliest thing to build on, so later days hand you double cones, paper cups and a sundae bowl for the really tall orders. Heat is the other clock: on a scorching day the scoops sag, drip down the sides and eventually slump off the cone, so a beautiful eight-scoop tower is no good if you take all afternoon over it.

Twenty days make a season, each one longer, hotter and busier than the last. New flavours arrive as you go — mint choc chip, blueberry, mango, pistachio, bubblegum — along with sauce, whipped cream and wafers, a second row of dispensers and a shade parasol that keeps everything cold a little longer. At close of play you get a report: cones served, scoops dropped, one to three stars, and a handful of coins to spend on a quicker scoop, a steadier hand, a chilled counter or a friendlier smile. Drag the cone on a phone, use the arrow keys and the number row on a desktop; your season is kept in your browser.