Taiyaki Tycoon — the 2001 phone game, rebuilt for the web
Pour the batter, flip each fish-shaped cake the moment it turns golden, and serve the queue before anything burns. This is a faithful rebuild of the Korean feature-phone classic. No install, no sign-up, and a global sales leaderboard. Note: the game itself is in Korean.
How to bake
The griddle has twelve molds. Tap an empty one to pour batter; a bar fills underneath. Tap while the bar is in the gold band to flip, then tap at gold again to take the cake out into your stock. The closer to the middle of the band, the better the cake sells. Rarely a mold will sparkle — pull that one out and you get a golden taiyaki that counts as two.
Cooking times never change. 4.4 seconds for the first side, 3.2 for the second, a 2.1-second gold band — the same at level 1 and level 30. What changes is the queue: customers arrive faster and wait less. Twelve molds put a hard ceiling on how much you can produce, and rising demand eventually passes it. Sitting there longer will not keep earning you more.
Mistakes cost you
Pulling a cake out raw, letting one burn, or handing over the wrong count each costs one life (you start with five). Mashing molds in a panic is not free. There are only two ways back: give the young woman a bonus cake and all your lives return; give the beggar one and a smashed mold is repaired.
The eight customers
| Regular | Just match the order. The faster you serve, the bigger the tip |
|---|---|
| Kid | Wants one extra on top of the order. Send them off without it and you lose a life |
| Permed lady | Serve anyone who arrived after her first and she walks out |
| Old man | Takes ⭐perfect cakes only |
| Student | Changes his mind while waiting — the order shifts by one |
| Young woman | Give her a bonus cake and every life comes back |
| Beggar | Pays nothing, but accepting that repairs one smashed mold |
| Thug | Short fuse. Miss him and he smashes two molds |
Combos come from bonus cakes
A fully served customer lingers for a moment. Tap again in that window to hand over a bonus cake and your combo rises — worth up to 600 extra per cake. But that cake comes out of the next customer's order. Stock or combo is the trade this game is built on.
Controls
Tap the screen, or use the keyboard: molds are 1 2 3 · Q W E · A S D · Z X C, customers are J K L, and space is the heat boost (cooks twice as fast, and the gold band shrinks with it).
Related games
- Whack-a-Mole — sixty seconds of pure reaction
- Brick Breaker — the arcade classic with power-ups
- Rhythm Repeat — the same timing sense, in music