Lighting the charcoal…
Play Mai Suya online free
Mai Suya is a suya stall game: you are the mai suya, the grill master at a roadside stand in Lagos at night. Customers queue for spicy beef on sticks, and every skewer has to come off the charcoal at the right moment, dusted with yaji and wrapped in paper, before the next order arrives.
What is this suya stall game?
A short, fast cooking game set at a suya stall in Lagos. Each night runs from 19:00 to 01:00 on the stall’s clock, about 2.5 minutes of real play: you set the fire, flip every skewer before it burns, season it the way each customer asks and take their naira.
You start in Agege with beef and chicken on the tray and a plain grill. What a night earns pays for the next one: more meat, more charcoal and better gear. Over the first nights the menu grows to nine meats, and your total takings open four more places, up to Victoria Island, where suya sells for more and customers expect more.
The queue is the heart of it. There are nine kinds of customer, from danfo drivers and students to aunties and visitors, each with their own orders and patience. Some haggle, some tip, and the ones whose haggle you accept come back as regulars. Weather and the city change the night too: rain on the coals, a NEPA power cut, a dusty Harmattan night or a football crowd, six kinds of night in all.
Between nights you spend your takings on seven stall upgrades of five levels each, from a bigger charcoal grill and a charcoal stove to tables and chairs, a signboard and a cooler for the cold drinks. The menu has seven drinks, from pure water to zobo and chapman, and five sides, from yaji to Agege bread.
How does a night at the stall go?
Buy stock
Before the stall opens, buy the meat, spice and charcoal for the night at the morning market. A bag of charcoal costs ₦300 and burns for about 3 hours of stall time.
Set the fire
The fire has three settings, low, medium and high: a hotter fire cooks faster but gives you less time to flip. Each night opens on medium.
Place and flip skewers
Put skewers on the grill and flip each one when its first side is done, before it burns. On medium a beef skewer gives you 4 seconds to flip; on high, only 2.9 seconds. When it is ready, tap it onto the plate, where it stops cooking.
Season and wrap
Dust the cooked suya with yaji, add what the customer asked for and wrap it in paper.
Collect the naira
Hand the suya over, take the money, and spend what you earn on a better stall.
What are the controls?
Everything is a tap, or a click with a mouse: pick a meat, tap a grill slot, tap the skewer to flip it, and tap a customer when their order is ready. On a computer every one of those actions also has a key, so you can run the whole grill from the keyboard.
On a touch screen
The game is laid out for a phone held upright: the customers queue along the top and the grill fills the middle, within reach of your thumb.
- Tap a meat in the tray, then an empty grill slot, to put a skewer on.
- Tap a skewer when it asks to be flipped; tap a burnt one to throw it away before its smoke scares the queue.
- Tap one of the three flames beside the grill to set the fire: low, medium or high.
- Tap ready skewers onto the plate; when a customer glows, set the pepper, extras and wrap their card shows and tap them to serve from the plate.
- When a customer haggles, tap yes or no: a yes costs a little now and can bring them back as a regular.
With a mouse
A click does what a tap does. Once the game is about 900 px wide it switches to its wide layout, made for a computer screen. Settings has a left-handed layout that moves the heat buttons and the meat tray to the left.
With a keyboard
The keys work while the game has the page, and rest while you type in a box. The table is read from the game’s own key handler, so it always matches the game.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1 to 9, 0, - and = | Grill slots 1 to 12: put the picked meat on an empty slot, flip a skewer, clear a burnt one |
| Shift + the same keys | Grill slots 13 to 24 on a bigger grill |
| Number pad 1 to 9 and 0 | Grill slots 1 to 10 |
| Space | Flip the skewer that needs it most: one in its flip window, else the one longest on its first side |
| G | The fire one setting lower (low, medium, high) |
| H | The fire one setting higher (low, medium, high) |
| A, S and D | No pepper, Pepper and Extra pepper |
| O, C and Y | Add or take out onion & tomato, cabbage and extra yaji |
| B | Box or newspaper |
| Esc | Start the wrap again: regular pepper, newspaper, nothing else |
| Q, W, E and R | Serve customers 1 to 4 with the wrap as it is set |
| P | Pause |
When do new meats and places open?
Meats open by night: beef and chicken from the start, the rest over the first seven nights. Places open by money: once total takings, every night’s sales and tips added up, reach a place’s mark, you can set up there for its nightly stall fee; Surulere also opens on night 3, whatever you have earned.
The prices below are Agege’s. Every later place pays more for the same skewer, while the meat costs the same at the market, so moving up is how a stall grows. A place you have opened stays open.
| Meat | Opens | Sells for in Agege | Cooking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beef suya | From the start | ₦300 | Steady |
| Chicken suya | From the start | ₦240 | Fast |
| Liver suya | Day 2 | ₦300 | Very fast |
| Gizzard suya | Day 2 | ₦240 | Slow |
| Kidney suya | Day 3 | ₦280 | Fast |
| Ram suya | Day 4 | ₦480 | Slow |
| Beef cut suya | Day 5 | ₦380 | Steady |
| Fish suya | Day 7 | ₦460 | Fast |
| Shrimp suya | Day 7 | ₦580 | Very fast |
| Place | Opens at (total earned) | Stall fee a night | Beef a skewer | Wrap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agege | From the start | ₦800 | ₦300 | Newspaper |
| Surulere | Day 3 or ₦30,000 in total | ₦1,300 | ₦320 | Newspaper |
| Ikeja | ₦80,000 | ₦2,000 | ₦320 | Newspaper |
| Lekki | ₦200,000 | ₦3,800 | ₦340 | Box |
| Victoria Island | ₦500,000 | ₦6,300 | ₦350 | Box |
Is Mai Suya a free Nigerian game online with no download?
Yes. It is set on the streets of Lagos, with suya, yaji, danfo drivers and NEPA nights, and it plays on this page in any recent browser. There is nothing to install, no store to visit and no account to make before your first night: the grill is ready as soon as the page is.
How does a no-download food game keep your stall?
In the browser’s own storage, as you play. Your cash, stock, upgrades, past nights and even a night still running stay on this device, so the game opens where you left it.
To carry the stall to another phone or computer, make a save code in Settings and enter it there, or sign in with your email, with no password, to keep it in the cloud. The guide’s chapter on saving explains both.
Frequently asked questions
Does the night stop if I switch tabs?
Yes. While the tab is hidden the night pauses, customers’ patience included, and it carries on when you come back. Opening the background panel beside the game pauses it too.
What if I close the page in the middle of a night?
The running night is written to this browser as the page closes, and it carries on from that moment the next time you open the game here.
What happens when the clock reaches 01:00?
The stall closes and the summary adds up the night: sales and tips, less the meat, charcoal, sides, drinks and stall fee, which leaves the profit. From there, the next night starts at the morning market.
Why is there no full-screen button?
Your browser cannot show a page full screen, as with Safari on iPhone, so the game hides the button. Where the browser can, “Full screen” gives the whole screen to the grill.