The place you inherited

You're Taro, and you run Neko Ramen, the yatai you inherited from your father in Fukuoka. A yatai is a small Japanese street food stall.

Much more than cooking

You'll take orders, cook dishes, keep your Stock filled and talk with the people who sit at the counter. The cooking and those encounters are part of the same night.

A year to live it

The campaign runs for 365 nights. The reviews speak of the yatai's work; your conversations and choices leave memories of their own.

Select a customer

Click a customer at the Front, or press their number from 1 to 9, to see their actions and their order. Each person orders one to three different dishes. Accept in time: if they wait too long, they leave.

Accept and pick a dish

Accept (Enter) adds the order to the kitchen's list. Reject (Del) turns down the whole order and the customer leaves. Once the order is accepted, click a dish card to start preparing it.

Keep an eye on the Front

Switch between the Front and the Kitchen (A and S) to follow the waits, serve and talk. The kitchen shows three orders per page: if there are more, turn pages with its arrows or with Z and C.

1. Read the recipe

Open the order in the kitchen. Each slot shows an ingredient and its method: Boil, Grill, Chop, Raw… When you place it, a check or a cross tells you whether you got it right.

2. Cook and keep watch

Click and hold the ingredient and drag it to the tool, or right-click and pick the method, also with keys 1 to 7. When it's ready, take it out in time: if it goes too long, it burns and ends up in the trash.

3. Finish the dish

Move each cooked ingredient to its slot by dragging, clicking or pressing E; raw ones go straight in. Filling the last slot serves the dish. Made a mistake? Start Over (Backspace) empties it, but you lose what you placed.

A hard recipe. It calls for these ingredients and methods:

With a single pot, the four boiled ingredients go one at a time: start with them and chop while they cook.

It starts with the produce

Each ingredient has a quality from 1 to 10, which you see at the market and in your Stock. In the kitchen, an ingredient's info icon shows the quality of what you have. That quality combines with how you cook it.

The method counts too

Each ingredient you place by hand adds to the dish; each wrong ingredient, method or cooking point takes away. Normal and hard recipes done right earn a bonus, and so do the techniques you apply.

Read the reviews

Every dish you serve gets a review of one to five stars. Your reputation, at the Front and the base, averages the last 60 days of reviews. When you close, the summary adds the average for today and for the year.

What Fast Cooking does

With an order open in the kitchen, the Fast Cooking button, or the W key, prepares the whole dish and spends one use. You need every ingredient: if one is missing, nothing gets cooked.

The cost of saving time

The dish comes out 20% worse: it misses what each hand-placed ingredient adds, the techniques and the difficulty bonus. Use it to clear a pile of orders, not when you're after your best dish.

How to get more uses

Each day starts with three uses or more, and leftovers don't carry over. You earn one for each new fact about a customer and for three hand-made dishes in a row with three stars or more.

Four kinds

With the yatai closed, click Markets and pick Veggie, Fish, Meats or Store. Each one opens a map: go into a stall and browse its goods with the arrows.

Not every stall is the same

Stalls of one kind sell almost the same things, but not at the same quality or price. New stalls open as the days go by, and they usually have better quality. The Newspaper announces every opening.

You can talk too

Click the vendor to chat or ask what's good today; 1, 2 and 3 pick your answers. About a product, you can ask for advice and, sometimes, a trick. If they tell you something personal, you can leave it for another day.

Pick a product and amount

Pick a product: the panel shows its quality, its price per unit and how many you have. Set the amount with + and - and click Buy. Change shows how the quality of your Stock will end up.

Pay attention to quality

A better product costs more, and what you buy mixes with what you already had. Find a balance between the food you want to serve and the money you need to restock.

Restock what you use most

Keep track of the ingredients that several recipes share: you can hold up to 50 units of each. When the day ends, back at the base, a notice tells you how many ran out, and they stay marked in red in your Stock.

Ask for a specific tip

When a vendor knows a trick for a product, “Any trick to cooking it right?” appears. Let them finish explaining: if you cut them off, you don't learn it. You'll see “Technique learned.”

Listening is the first step

The technique stays for the whole game, and you can review it in Recipes. For it to improve the dish, do what you were taught, like taking an ingredient out on time. Dragging, clicking or E all count the same.

Try it carefully

If you do it right, you'll see “technique applied.” Fast Cooking doesn't apply techniques. Ordinary tips don't add quality, except for the dish they recommend with “What should I cook today?”, and only that day.

Start with what comes up

Click a customer and choose Talk. Pick among the answers: you can comment, go along with a topic or leave it for another time. With “I'll get back to the stove.” you return to work.

Give the answer room

Not everyone wants to tell everything right away. A dodge doesn't end the relationship: on another visit you can pick up what was left pending. Recent bad reviews also weigh on Taro's mood.

Read to the end

If an answer runs several pages, you'll see Continue. Click the text or press Enter: the first one finishes the typing and the next turns the page. On the last one, 1, 2 and 3 pick the answer.

What you get to know

By talking, you can discover each person's age, hometown, job, hobby, favorite food and favorite ingredient. Each new fact gets noted down and gives you +1 Fast Cooking.

Use what you remember

When you choose Talk, the top of the window shows what you already know about that person. A known taste can help you make something they especially value and understand their reactions better.

Each visit takes its time

Don't expect someone to tell you the same thing again, or every story to move forward right away. Pay attention to references to earlier encounters.

Choose what plays

Click the radio, turn it on and tune in a station: static doesn't count. Use + and - to set the volume. The TV has its own channels, which you pick with its buttons.

Watch the customers

Each customer has a favorite station and channel, and they're not the same for everyone. When what they like is on, they look happy or sing along: that's the sign they're comfortable.

Switch when it makes sense

That comfort can improve the dish's review a little. It counts once per visit and isn't lost if you switch later. Some stories also run through these objects.

Read today's edition

With the yatai closed, open the Newspaper. Each day brings one story: a market opening, price or quality changes, dishes ordered more or less, or a recipe or artifact you got. Read it before shopping.

Get ready for festival day

The night before, a customer may mention a festival, and on the day the Newspaper announces it. Theme dishes sell more, and not every stall raises prices: the vendors tell you before you open.

Heed the alerts

Sometimes the Newspaper warns that spoiled seafood reached some fish stalls. Don't buy it; if you already did, don't serve it that day. Serving it gets the yatai shut down by the health authorities.

Income and purchases

With the yatai closed, open Finance. Its tabs add up the whole game: what you sold and spent, your best-selling dishes, costs and customers served.

Waste is lost stock

Whatever burns or you throw in the trash comes out of your Stock. Click the kitchen's trash to see how many ingredients you wasted today and what they're worth at replacement price.

Read the result in context

The profit in the daily summary is what you took in minus what you bought that day. It's not each dish's margin: you also buy for the days ahead, and a tool costs a lot.

Finish the service

At 11:30 PM the closing notice appears, and at midnight the yatai closes on its own. To close earlier, click Close under End day. Check the orders in progress: whatever is left in the kitchen is lost.

Read the summary

When you close, you see the night: profit, waste, customers, orders prepared and rejected, today's reviews, your reputation, the top seller and your total money. Use it to decide what to improve tomorrow.

New recipes

If you serve at least six dishes with a review of three stars or more, you can earn a recipe at closing. The next one takes at least five days. In Recipes, new ones come first, with the “New” ribbon.

Save with the yatai closed

Open the menu with Space, Esc or the menu button, go to Saved and pick one of the three slots. Click Save and confirm. If the slot already holds a game, you're asked before it's overwritten.

Pick up from a slot

To continue a game, pick its slot, click Open and confirm the load. Each slot shows the day and the reputation, and when you pick it you see when you saved it.

Make saving a habit

Every two nights, with the yatai closed, a notice reminds you to save, but it doesn't save for you. After saving, check that the slot shows the current day.

The passing days

The campaign ends when you close night 365, which you can play in full. The nights reveal new sides of Taro and of the bond with the yatai.

Keep the business going

Ten nights in a row averaging two stars or less end the game. A day without reviews counts too; going above two stars breaks the streak. Serving contaminated seafood also ends it.

What's shared stays too

Choices in the stories can leave memories and follow-ups. The year's ending looks back on the yatai's work and some shared moments, without turning relationships into another score.

I can't find an order.

Make sure you accepted it, and turn pages with Z and C.

No tool is free.

Take out what's already done, or buy another one.

The dish came out wrong.

Compare ingredients, methods and cooking with the recipe.

A customer left without eating.

Accept the order in time: then they wait for it.

It won't let me save.

Close the yatai and pick a slot in Saved.

There are keys drawn on the screen.

Those are the keyboard hints: press Alt to hide them.

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