Fudge & Fizz

Fudge & Fizz is a seaside sweet shop you run for one summer.

Nana Ivy has left you her shop on the prom at Saltmarsh Bay, with her recipe book and one rule: make enough in the summer to see the shop through the winter. The winter tin needs £3,000 by the end of the season.

THE WHOLE SHOP, CUT OPEN
You see the building in section, like a doll's house: the prom and the bay window, the shop floor, the counter, the back room, Nana's parlour upstairs and the cellar. Small figures walk the prom, stop at your window, come in, browse the shelves and buy what's there. You're one of them: send yourself to the till, down to the cellar for stock, to the window or up to the phone.

MAKE IT IN THE MORNING
Each morning you plan the making against the weather, the day and the post, then make every batch by hand in the back room:
• Fudge: hold the flame to the soft-ball window, tap the bubbles before they catch, cut the tray.
• Seaside rock: pull on the beat and trace the word that runs through the middle with your finger. Every stick reads it.
• Chocolates: temper on the marble slab, fill, drizzle and pack.
• Honeycomb: hard crack, the bicarb on the beat, then break it.
• Pick 'n' mix comes in by the jar and is weighed at the till.

FIRST-CLASS OR SECONDS
Every piece comes out first-class or seconds, and the card tells you why in plain words: two bubbles burst, the last cut wandered, a letter in the rock didn't take. Seconds aren't wasted. They go in the bag of broken bits on the counter, and the kids love them. Five first-class batches in a row and the Confectioners' Guild hallmarks the recipe.

COMMISSIONS BY LETTER
Orders come by post, through the door, on the phone and at the till: a lifeboat open day, a wedding, two dozen sticks of rock that say MARRY ME. Read the letter, write each order into the book, and have it ready on the day. Not sure what they meant? Write back, and the answer comes by the next post.

A SEASON IN SALTMARSH BAY
Thirty played days, from the Easter weekend to October half-term: the pier reopens, a heatwave, the carnival, the Regatta, a wedding and the last of the illuminations. Twenty-five townsfolk with summers of their own, from Bet, Nana Ivy's oldest friend, to Kai from the pier. After the season the shop opens on winter Saturdays.

YOUR SHOP
Spend the till's takings on seventeen upgrades, from a bigger tray and a second pan to a sun blind and a delivery bike, and on fittings: paint, signwriting, awnings, wallpaper, floors and props for the window. Earn postcards of the town for the album as the season goes on.

MADE TO BE KIND
• Nothing fails. A missed order still gets something off the shelf, and if the tin's short at the end the regulars have a whip-round.
• No energy, no lives and no timer on you, only the hours of the shop's day, and you can pause those.
• Seaside-print art drawn for this game: a few inks on cream paper, no outlines.
• Portrait or landscape, iPhone and iPad, with your season saved to iCloud.

FREE TO PLAY
Fudge & Fizz is free. A banner shows on the closing-time ledger only, and a full-screen ad at most once a day, at lights out. Watching an ad can buy one of three small helps a day. Remove Ads turns every ad off. The optional Wholesaler's Account pays for your ingredients, keeps the jars full and sends a fittings piece each month, with no ads. There is no premium currency. Every upgrade is bought with the till's money; the fittings sets and the Founder's Box are decorative, and their window props count like any other.

Recent changes:
Shorter, clearer days in the shop.

Quiet spells now pass by themselves, and the clock slows the moment a customer, the phone or an empty shelf needs you. A day's opening is now 3 minutes, with 4 or 5 in Settings.

From 14:00 you can leave Bet minding the shop. A strip along the top shows the day's steps, Bet pencils in a plan each morning, and she walks new players through their first day.

Fixed:
- orders that come back at closing now pay into the till.