Let’s start with the table —
how many seconds until the hand arrives?
HotteokMaster customers never stretch out a hand at random. As the level goes up, the griddle gets more slots, the warning gets shorter, and the time they wait for you shrinks. The table below is copied straight from the level curve in the game source. Why these numbers feel like a squeeze is what this story is about.
| Level | Customers (goal) | Griddle slots | Hand warning | Waiting time | Clear H-coins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 2 | 1.00 s | 5.50 s | 12 |
| 3 | 18 | 3 | 0.96 s | 5.38 s | 16 |
| 6 | 20 | 4 | 0.90 s | 5.20 s | 22 |
| 12 | 23 | 5 | 0.78 s | 4.84 s | 34 |
| 20 | 27 | 6 | 0.62 s | 4.36 s | 50 |
| 30 | 32 | 7 | 0.60 s | 4.00 s | 70 |
| 40 | 37 | 8 | 0.60 s | 4.00 s | 90 |
The slot count is 2 at levels 1–2, 3 at 3–5, 4 at 6–10, 5 at 11–19, 6 at 20–29, 7 at 30–39, and 8 from level 40. More slots do not mean more breathing room, because the customers speed up along with them. The customer counter at the top of each screenshot (0/10, 0/20, 0/27, 0/37) matches the goals in the table above.
The customer measures how fast you cook
The trick behind the HotteokMaster customer AI is simple. It measures how fast you make hotteok and buys slightly faster than that. That is why the tray is always tilting toward empty. Progress (customers served + customers missed ÷ the goal) splits the round into two stretches.
It starts at 1.03× your cooking pace and, as levels rise, catches up to as much as 1.14×. This is where the feeling comes from that a hand arrives and grabs the hotteok the moment you set it down.
The ratio climbs from 1.13× to 1.25× and rushes of customers become more common. On the progress dots at the top of the screen, the last 30% is the red stretch. With a goal of 10, it begins after the seventh customer.
“70% a squeeze, 30% a showdown” is shorthand, but no lottery picks each customer. It means the first 70% and the last 30% of a round have different characters.
That is why the key is not to let the tray run empty in the first stretch. Once the showdown opens it cannot be undone, and without a stock of hotteok you cannot keep up however fast your hands are.
The 3 seconds one hand takes
Customers come one at a time. The hand enters from the upper left of the screen, shows the number it needs with its fingers (the bubble says “Two, please!”), reaches out for 0.4 seconds, and if the tray has hotteok, it takes them. The moving picture below shows a hand visiting for the first, second, and third time.
“Five, please!” — five fingers. With the tray well stocked there is nothing to worry about.
Orders run from 1 to 5. Levels 1–2 order at most 4, from level 3 the maximum is 5, and from level 2 the minimum is 2. The warning time shrinks as 1.0 − 0.02 × (level − 1) seconds and stops at 0.6, and if the hotteok are short, the hand stays out while the waiting time (5.5 s at level 1) runs down in seconds and on a bar. Under 2.5 seconds left, “Hurry up~” appears.
When a hand reaches an empty tray: the life math
If a hand arrives and the tray is empty, life drops. These are the values in the source.
Missing one customer entirely, including 2 or 3 empty tries, costs roughly 43–49. You start at 100, so missing two is dangerous and three ends the round.
Under 50% life, flames flicker over the bar, and under 30% “DANGER!” blinks. At 0, the screen below appears. The text is the solution.
“A customer left empty-handed” · “Keep a few hotteok stacked ahead”.
There is one comforting rule. Even if you miss a customer, it still counts toward the goal, so the round moves forward regardless. The only real way to fail is life reaching 0.
The tray is a bank, items are emergency cash
The tray holds 4 towers of 10, 40 in total. Customers take the top hotteok (the last one you put down). If you bank hotteok in the first 70%, you can answer the rushing hands of the showdown all at once.
20 perfect in a row — hotteok stacked high on the tray. Ideal stock before the showdown.
Two items help when the stock runs out. Both are one tap on the bottom row.
| Item | Effect | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Wait | Customers’ hands pause for 5 s. The warning and waiting time pick up where they left off | A hand is in and you are 2 or 3 hotteok short: 5 seconds to catch your breath |
| Extra Time | Gives a customer waiting for hotteok 5 more seconds. Up to twice per customer | Only usable when a hand has already reached an empty tray (an empty try has happened) |
Prices rise a little from the base price as levels go up (Broom 30, Wait 40, Extra Time 50 H-coins and so on, rounded to 5). If you have none, it buys with coins on the spot, and if you have no coins either, it offers an ad before the purchase. When you cannot use one right now (Extra Time with no customer), it does not buy and shows “Can’t use that now”.
- In the first 70%, cook faster and focus on filling the tray.
- If your hands look too slow in the showdown, buy 5 seconds with Wait and cook meanwhile.
- Extra Time only works on a customer who has already had an empty try. Keep it as first aid after life has been cut.
- The same level brings the same customers. Remember the order of the round you lost.
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