Taco Truck

Taco Truck is a cooking game about one serving hatch and the night market outside it. Tickets come in one, two or three tacos, and every taco is four decisions: a soft tortilla or a crispy shell off the fryer, a filling seared on the plancha, toppings read top to bottom in the order the ticket lists them, and a salsa poured by hand. The food is drawn like cut paper against a deep-blue night — pink, teal, marigold and lime under a string of bulbs — so a loaded taco is worth a second look before it goes over the counter.

The plancha is the part that keeps you honest. A portion goes on raw, sears on one side, and there is a window of about a second where a flip earns the perfect edge; leave it and it blackens and belongs in the bin. Lift it in time and it waits under the warming lamp, slowly going dull. Crispy shells come out of the oil on their own timer. The salsa jars are held rather than tapped: the level climbs while you hold, a green band marks the line, and holding a beat too long tips the jar across the board. Tap the taco to scrape the last thing off when your fingers get ahead of your eyes.

The crowd arrives in bursts — a mariachi with a guitar on his shoulder, an abuela with a basket, a skater with a board under one arm, a tourist with a lanyard, twins in face paint and, later on, a luchador in a gold mask. Serve a whole ticket with nothing scraped, nothing burnt and nothing spilled and your streak climbs, and with it the tips; somewhere in the middle of every night the fireworks start and the whole street wants tacos at once. Nights unlock crispy shells, new fillings, hotter salsas and horchata, and each one ends with a report worth one to three stars and a handful of in-game coins for a second plancha, a bigger warmer, a steadier salsa bar, a helper on the fryer, warmer string lights or a fresh coat of paint. Play with a finger or with the keyboard, in portrait or landscape, and your progress and best stars are kept in your browser.