Ittoryu: Master Fillet

Run a sushi counter for 40 voiced guests, 15 to 20 a night, cut every order on the spot, and grow from a street stall to an omakase room.

Ittoryu is a fish filleting game built on real butchery. Every species has its own bones and its own technique, and every stroke of your blade decides how much meat you save. Now you cut for the people across your counter.

NEW: SERVICE Run your own sushi counter. Each night 15 to 20 guests part the noren, take a stool and order, and every one of them talks. 40 guests, from the grandmother and the fisherman to a sumo wrestler, an ama diver, a rakugo storyteller and the rival chef from across the street, each voiced in Japanese with English subtitles, with their own favourite fish, patience and tips. They eat what you serve, order again, stay on to talk, or wait at the door when every stool is taken.

CUT TO ORDER Orders pile up while you work. Pick the fish off the ice, fillet it on the board while its guest waits, then slice it at the counter one long pull at a time into sashimi or nigiri. Where your stroke crosses the block sets the slice, and a critic notices one too thick. Grilled orders cook on the konro, two at a time: turn once and take it off in time. A dull edge tears a slice now and then. Touch it up at the counter, or sharpen before the night and right after.

STOCK THE COUNTER Each morning the market sells the month's seasonal fish and a catch of the day, which pay more, and names a daily special that pays double. Buy whole fish by count: a tuna gives four plates, and the rest keeps in the fridge as saku. Run out of a guest's fish and you offer another or apologise. Sell every plate and the noren comes down.

THE NIGHT'S RECEIPT When the last guest leaves, the night is stamped for a full house, a clean board, a steady hand, the daily special and the closer. Stamps earn reputation, which raises your rank from Minarai to Densetsu and brings new guests to the counter.

YOUR RESTAURANT More stools, a tea kettle and hot towels for patient guests, norens for the door, Kiyomizu and Bizen plate sets, a scroll, ikebana, bonsai and lanterns. Rooms go from the Yatai and Izakaya, which name the fish and draw the guide lines, to the Counter, which takes the lines away, and Omakase, which names nothing and pays 2.2 times as much.

CUSTOMER BOOK Every guest's visits, clean plates and favourite fish. Regulars order the usual and leave a gift as patrons. A Weekly Book sets three goals with roe and decor for finishing them.

CUT LIKE A CHEF Scale the fish, take the head, open the belly and clean the cavity. Run the blade over the spine, sweep the ribs, pull the pin bones and skin the fillets. Cut close to the line and the yield climbs.

REAL TECHNIQUES Western two-fillet for salmon and cod. Sanmai oroshi for mackerel and sea bream. Quarter fillets for flatfish. The five-fillet Y-bone method for pike. Loining yellowfin tuna into toro and akami. Honegiri for hamo, through hundreds of fine bones.

FIFTEEN FISH Salmon, trout, cod, branzino, saba, king mackerel, madai, hamachi, mahi-mahi, pike, flounder, halibut, unagi, hamo and yellowfin tuna, each painted from its real markings.

SEVEN KNIVES From a humble kitchen knife to a hand-forged honyaki yanagiba. The deba powers through collars, the fillet knife bends along the ribs, the sujihiki draws long slices through big loins.

KEEP YOUR EDGE Knives dull as you work. Hone mid-order, then sharpen by hand on the stone for free, or leave the blade with the sharpener for a small roe fee. Four stones, up to a natural stone quarried near Kyoto.

PRACTICE BOARD Untimed, any fish, as many reps as you like. Clear every fish to unlock Roe Harvest, osetra and beluga caviar harvested by hand.

ROE Every fish and every order pays roe. Spend it on knives, stones and your restaurant, double a good run or a night's tips with a short ad, and every tenth night served fills a free tin of caviar.

MAKE IT YOURS Paper by day or Night, a music level, and the blade in your left or right hand. Every menu sits in a painted sushi bar.

Ittoryu is single player and plays offline.