Şerbetçi: Grandpa's Recipe Book

Şerbetçi: Grandpa's Recipe Book is a discovery game built on real recipes from Turkish cuisine. You have inherited the key to Grandpa's old attar shop in Istanbul's Spice Bazaar, and on the counter lies his recipe book, full of half-finished pages. You combine two ingredients from the shelf on the counter; the right pair creates a new recipe and fills a page of the book. Starting from water and sugar, you work your way to rose sherbet, Turkish coffee, baklava, wedding pilaf and, in winter, roasted chestnuts: 110 recipes across 7 chapters. Along the way you serve the neighbours who come to the door and collect stars.

The shelf sits at the bottom of the screen and the counter, with two slots, in the middle. Tap an ingredient on the shelf and it moves into a free slot; you can also drag it into a slot (on a touch screen, hold the ingredient for a moment, then drag). When both slots are full, the ingredients combine:

• If it is a real recipe, a new discovery appears with a flash of light, a short culture card opens, and the recipe is added to the book and to the shelf.
• If not, you see "That didn't work. Try something else." Try the same pair again and the game reminds you: "You already tried this."

Order does not matter: Water with Sugar is the same as Sugar with Water. You can also put the same ingredient in both slots. Ingredients are never used up; they stay on the shelf. Mortar, Rolling pin and Cauldron are tools. The shelf tabs (All, Basics, Sherbet, Sweets, Spices, Coffee, Table, Tea) help you find things, and the empty jars with a question mark at the end of the shelf show how many recipes are still waiting in the current chapter. A faded ingredient has no new recipes left to make. Once the shelf gets long, the Hide finished button with the eye icon next to the tabs hides these faded ingredients; when you are giving a recipe to a customer, everything is shown again.

The book is the map of the game. Recipes you have not found yet appear as half-finished pages: you see the silhouette of the recipe and its flavour tags (Cool, Sweet, Rose, Spicy and so on). When both of its ingredients are already on your shelf, the page shows Ingredients are on the shelf. Tap a half-finished page to open Grandpa's note for that recipe.

Basic ingredients arrive a few at a time within each chapter: after a certain number of discoveries, new ones such as Ice, Lemon, Sour cherry and Mint appear on the shelf. The tabs at the top of the book open each chapter as well as the Orders and Badges pages, and Watch the story replays the scenes you have seen so far.

After a few discoveries, the neighbours start coming in. Each customer has a request and three wishes, for example Cool, Sour, Minty. Press Give and choose a recipe from the shelf:

• The first wish is a must; a recipe that does not meet it is turned down.
• Every wish the recipe meets is worth 1 star, up to 3.
• While you are giving, each recipe on the shelf shows how many stars it would earn.

Customers arrive in three rounds of three in every chapter. The last round of each chapter includes a story order: Snow sherbet, Mesir paste, Keşkül, Feast-day table, Wedding table, Breakfast table and Winter table. For these you must hand over exactly that recipe, and it earns 3 stars. Once an order is delivered it is closed, but if you got fewer than 3 stars you can call that customer back with Try again on the Orders page of the book; your best result is kept.

Find three quarters of a chapter's discoveries and the chapter is complete, so the next one opens; you can fill in the remaining pages later. In the Wedding chapter, combine the two big tables to find the Feast page: Grandpa's book is complete and the final scene plays. After that, the Travel Notes chapter opens from the back cover of the book, and once that is done, Winter Table follows.

Stuck? Press the light bulb button. Grandpa's note shows one ingredient of the next recipe; a second note on the same recipe reveals the other ingredient too. Notes are free: while the game is open, a new note fills every 3 minutes, and up to 3 can build up. If you have no notes, See the full recipe lets you watch a short ad to see both ingredients at once; that is always your choice. If a story order is open, the note points to that recipe first.

Once you complete Grandpa's book, two new things open up:

• Master's exam: ten customers come in, you can give each of them only one recipe, and there are no hints. You can collect up to 30 stars; every exam is different, and your best result goes on the leaderboard.
• My recipe: the last blank page of the book is yours. Pick two or three recipes you know and a vessel, then give your recipe a name; the page can be shared as an image card.

You can also share the card of any recipe you have found as an image styled like a page of the book.

Finish the Spice Bazaar chapter to unlock Today's orders. Every day the same five customers come to everyone, and you can give each of them only one recipe. Here the shelf does not show stars; the tags of the recipe you pick appear in the confirmation window. Your stars and your daily streak are saved.

On certain days of the year a season marker appears in the header: Turkish Coffee Day (5 December), Salep season (December to February), Hıdırellez (1 to 10 May), Time to cool off (15 June to August) and Grape harvest (September and October). On those days the first customers in today's orders ask for flavours that suit the season. As your total stars grow, decorations such as the Copper lamp, Tiled wall, Kilim cover, Rose pot and Golden shelves unlock on the Shop page of the book, and you can put up the ones you like.

The Badges tab in the book holds 20 badges, from your first recipe to all of them, from 3-star orders to a chapter without hints, and from daily streaks to the seasons and the Master's exam. Your leaderboard score is 10 points per discovery plus 5 points per order star.