Soup's Up

Soup's Up takes place in a restaurant kitchen in the middle of service, and the newest cook is a small dumpling in a very tall hat. Between dishes an order ticket rolls down the rail, and with it comes a small sign for the station, one big word, a hand showing what to do and a few seconds on the fuse along the top. Get it right and the cook beams. Get it wrong and the mistake lands on the cook: egg all over it, a lid on its head, pizza dough flopped over its head, a sooty face from a burnt patty.

There are twelve jobs across the kitchen. CRACK! taps the egg open once the crack has gone all the way round, STIR! circles the big pot to keep it from boiling over, and SEAR! turns each patty when its side has gone golden. CHOP! cuts the carrot at every dashed line but never where the cook's mitten holds it, TOSS! throws pizza dough so it spins open inside the dashed ring, and PEEL! follows the spiral round a potato in one long curl. PLATE! drags each garnish onto its spot on a turning plate, BLOW! cools two spoons of soup in turn so neither boils nor freezes, and TASTE! picks the right jar for the soup's face: cold soup wants chilli, hot soup wants ice and sour soup wants honey. You tap, hold, drag, swipe, circle, rub and trace, and the first orders are the easiest ones.

A service is endless and lasts until all three chef's hats are gone, one for every job that goes wrong. The pace creeps up order by order, with a HOTTER! sign every five orders, up to about twice the speed. Every tenth order is RUSH HOUR: a ticket shows three ingredients, then everything in the kitchen rides past on a belt and you tap the three in order. Clear it for a NEW STATION!, from Pot Washer to Peeler, Line Cook and on to Legend of the Kitchen, and a lost hat comes back. TONIGHT'S SERVICE shows the order you reached, your best order, the dishes done and your station. Your best order is saved in your browser, and every job you have met waits on THE MENU to be practised on its own.