Cashier Rush Game

You run the till in a busy little shop. Each customer shows a price and pays with a note. Work out the change in your head, build it in the tray from coins and notes, and hand it over. Every customer in the queue has a patience bar, and slow service drains all of them at once. Correct change in the fewest pieces earns a bonus, so the game rewards counting up from the price, the way cashiers make change.

How to play

1. A customer reaches the counter. The till shows the price, and the customer holds out the note they paid with. Later shifts bring customers who pay with two notes.
2. Tap coins and notes to fill the change tray. Each tap adds one piece, and UNDO takes the last one back. IN TRAY shows the total so far.
3. Press GIVE CHANGE. Exact change serves the customer, and the next one steps up. Wrong change costs a life, and the customer tells you the right amount and how to count up to it before leaving.
4. Exact change in the fewest possible pieces earns a bonus.
5. Patience bars drain while you work, for everyone in the queue. When a bar runs out, that customer walks out, which also costs a life. The game ends when your three lives are gone.

On a keyboard, type the change, such as 2.65, and press Enter. The game builds the fewest pieces for you, so typed change earns no bonus. Backspace takes back a digit and Escape clears the amount. Space pauses, and so does Escape when nothing is typed.

A shift is eight customers. The first shifts change the prices rather than the speed: whole units, then .05 steps, then any cents, then customers who pay with two notes. After that comes the lunch rush, with a longer queue and a little less patience every shift. You can start at whole units, .05 steps or any cents. Practice mode stops the patience bars, costs no lives and shows how to count up to each customer's change.

Scoring

Each customer you serve with the right change scores up to 200 points.

• Every correct serve scores 100.
• Up to 50 more for speed, in proportion to how much of the customer's patience bar is left. A full bar earns all 50, and a bar at half earns 25.
• 50 more for tapping out the change in the fewest pieces it can be made from. Typed change never earns this bonus.
• Wrong change and walkouts score nothing and cost a life. Serving a customer with at least half of the bar left gives the next customer back a fifth of a full bar.

For example, a customer buys something for 7.35 and pays with a 10, so the change is 2.65. Count up from the price: .05 makes 7.40, .10 makes 7.50, .50 makes 8, and 2 makes 10. Those four pieces are the fewest that make 2.65. Tap .05, .10, .50 and 2, press GIVE CHANGE while the bar is still four-fifths full, and the serve scores 100 + 40 + 50, or 190.

Your five best scores for each starting point are saved in this browser, with the shift you reached. Practice games are not saved.

Making change is mental arithmetic you can practice anywhere. To go further, see our mental math techniques, or try our other free memory games.