Waffle
A browser cooking game you play with your hands and voice. Take an order, make the batter, mix, cook and top your waffle, then get scored out of three stars. Designed and built solo in about a week.
Play WaffleWaffle is a browser game about making a waffle, played with your hands and your voice. Hand tracking with MediaPipe and voice recognition take the place of the mouse and keyboard, so an everyday cooking routine becomes something you perform. It's a personal project: I designed and built it on my own, from idea to a live, playable game, in about a week.
It started with reels of MediaPipe and TouchDesigner experiments: people controlling visuals just by moving their hands. I wanted to see how that kind of interaction would feel inside a simple, familiar game, so I picked something everyone already knows how to do: making a waffle.
- 01
Take the order
A customer orders a waffle, like a Strawberry Supreme for Ishaan, with the toppings it needs.
- 02
Make the batter
Point at each of the seven ingredients and pinch to pick it up, then open your palm to drop it in the bowl. Or just say “add milk”.
- 03
Mix
Circle your index finger in the air to stir, drag circles inside the bowl, or say “mix”. A progress bar fills as you go.
- 04
Cook
A timer runs while the waffle cooks. When it turns golden brown, a ding tells you it's ready.
- 05
Top and serve
Pinch the right toppings from a tray of seven, or say a topping, then “serve”.
- 06
Get scored
Up to three stars, with your time, your best score, and a button to share your waffle.
| Stage | Hands | Voice | Mouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batter | Point and pinch to pick, open palm to add | “Add milk” | — |
| Mix | Circle your index finger | “Mix” | Drag circles in the bowl |
| Cook | No input: wait for the ding | — | — |
| Toppings | Point at a topping and pinch | Say a topping, then “serve” | — |
Each stage names its gesture and its voice command on screen, and the cooking stage uses sound instead: a ding at golden brown, so you don't have to stare at the timer.
Anyone should be able to start playing without instructions.
Gesture and voice controls are unfamiliar for most people. The hard part was making the cooking process understandable through visual interaction alone, while keeping it simple enough for a casual player with no gaming experience.
So the game coaches you the whole time. A gesture guide shows the move for the current stage, the camera panel reports what it sees (“Hand not visible”, “Move your hand into view”), a checklist tracks every ingredient and topping, a warning appears the moment tracking is lost, and a ding tells you when the waffle is done.
- 01
Keep the gameplay simple
So players understand what to do in seconds, even with unfamiliar controls.
- 02
Show progress through cooking states
The batter, the cooking waffle and the finished waffle each look different, and checklists and progress bars show how far along you are.
- 03
Never leave the player guessing
A persistent gesture guide, live camera status and a voice prompt for every stage, with a mouse fallback where it helps.
- 04
One illustrated environment
Every object was designed to belong to the same warm kitchen, so the game feels like one experience rather than a collection of separate assets.
A warm, playful cooking-game style, with illustrated objects and clear visual states that work together:
- Waffle maker
- Batter
- Waffle states
- Steam
- Honey
- Utensils
- Plate
- Toppings tray
- Order cards
- Gesture guide
1 weekfrom idea to a live game
I built Waffle with Claude and ChatGPT, which let me move from concept to visual design to working computer vision and voice controls, and ship a playable game in about a week.
More toppings are next. I also haven't playtested it formally yet, so watching people play for the first time is the other step I want to take.