Why kaya toast?

A stacking game needs something flat that piles up. Kaya toast in Singapore comes as thin slices with kaya and a cold slab of butter pressed between them, so from the side it already looks like a little tower. That is the slice you drop here.

The rest of the kopitiam breakfast found its way in too. A soft-boiled egg makes your stack a bit wider. A cup of kopi slows the next slice down, which is the closest thing this game has to a coffee break.

A bit of real kaya toast history

Kaya is an egg jam made with coconut milk and sugar. Peranakan kaya is infused with pandan leaves, which turn it green. Hainanese kaya has caramelized sugar added, which gives it a brown tint. Our slices use the brown one.

The classic set is toast with kaya and thin slices of butter, soft-boiled eggs with dark soy sauce and pepper, and kopi or teh. The toast was traditionally done over charcoal. The coffee beans are roasted in a wok with sugar and margarine, and the kopi is brewed through a sock-like cloth filter. “Kopi” is Malay for coffee and “tiam” is Hokkien for shop.

The Hainanese part of the story starts in the 19th century, when many immigrants from Hainan worked as cooks on European ships or in households and hotels. Between the 1920s and 1950s, the Hainanese carved out a niche in Singapore’s coffee shops and helped make this breakfast popular. A coffee shop on Killiney Road dates back to 1919, and the Singapore Book of Records 2008 listed it as the oldest existing Hainanese coffee shop. In March 2019, the traditional breakfast of kaya and kopi was added to Singapore’s Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory.

Stacking games, briefly

Drop-and-trim stacking is an arcade idea. A well-known prize machine from 2004 slid a row of three lit blocks side to side. You pressed a button to stop it, a faster row appeared above, and blocks that did not sit on the row below were removed. The big prize waited at row 15. We kept the trimming and added perfect drops that let your slices grow back.

The breakfast ladder

Your height in one go earns a rank. The names are our own menu:

• Plain Toast: where everyone starts.
• Kaya Toast: 5 slices.
• Kaya Butter: 10 slices.
• Set A: 20 slices.
• Set B: 30 slices.
• Kopitiam Legend: 50 slices. The slices are fast by then.

Today’s order is an optional target, the same for everyone each day in Singapore time. Half of it earns 1 star, three quarters earns 2, and the full order earns 3.

How to play

• A slice of kaya toast slides back and forth above the stack. Tap, click, or press Space to drop it.
• Any part hanging over the edge is trimmed off, so the next slice is smaller. Miss the stack completely and breakfast is over.
• A perfect drop keeps the full width. From the third perfect drop in a row, each one grows the slice back a little.
• An egg on a slice makes the stack wider when it lands. A kopi cup makes the next slice move slower.
• The slices speed up as the tower grows. Your best height saves on this device.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.

Tips from the counter

Watch one edge. Wait for the leading edge of the slice to meet the edge of the stack below. That is easier to judge than the middle.

Tap a touch earlier as it speeds up. The slices start slow and are nearly three times as fast by the top of the ladder. Tap a little sooner each time.

Chase streaks early. Perfect drops win back width, and that gives you room for mistakes later.

Use the kopi slice. The slice after a kopi moves at a little over half speed. Aim for a perfect on that one.

Your turn

The toast is warm at the top of this page. Drop your first slice and see how tall breakfast can get.