Wobbly Waiter Guide – How to Carry Tall Towers, Catch Falling Plates and Get 3 Stars
Wobbly Waiter is a free 3D physics comedy game for your browser and phone. You are a clumsy waiter with one tray, and every dish the kitchen cooks gets stacked on top of the last one. The tower bends and sways every time you start, stop, turn or bump into something. This guide explains how it works and how to earn 3 stars on all 12 shifts.
The basics
- Walk with W A S D or the arrow keys. You can also hold the mouse button and the waiter walks towards the cursor. On a phone, drag anywhere on the screen.
- Tiptoe by holding Space, Shift or the right mouse button (the TIPTOE button on mobile, or a second finger). You walk at less than half speed, your steps are smoother and your arm absorbs more of every jolt.
- Pause with P or Esc.
The bottom-left box shows how many dishes are on your tray and a WOBBLE meter. When it turns red, the top of your tower is about to slide off.
Picking up and serving
- Stand at the kitchen window (look for the 🔔 number). One dish lands on your tray every fraction of a second, on top of the previous one. Walk away whenever your tower is as tall as you dare.
- Tables with a green ring have a guest waiting for something on your tray. Walk close and the dish is served automatically.
- The bubble above each guest shows their order and a ring that empties as they lose patience.
When you serve, the waiter takes the highest matching dish. Everything above it drops down onto the dish below, which gives the tower a jolt. Order matters: stack the dishes for the nearest tables on top.
The kitchen only cooks what guests ordered. If you are carrying a dish nobody wants any more, walk back to the window and the chef takes it back from the top of your tower.
How the tower wobbles
Every dish slides on the one below it, like a stack of real plates. Three things push it:
- Acceleration. Starting, stopping and turning push the tower the opposite way. A full-speed reverse or a sharp U-turn is the classic way to lose a tower.
- Height. Wobbles travel up the stack, so the top of a tall tower swings much more than the bottom. When the mass above a dish leans out, gravity pulls it further.
- Bumps. Running into furniture, guests, kids, the dog or a dancer is a sudden jolt. Brushing past a table at an angle is fine; hitting it head-on at full speed is not. The waiter brakes on his own when he gets close to furniture, but he cannot stop instantly.
Dish shapes matter too. Flat plates (steak, croissant, pancakes) grip well and make a good base. Tall, thin glasses (champagne, the sundae, the shrimp cocktail, the goo shake) and round things (the coconut, the alien egg) have a small base and slide off sooner, so carry them near the top. Heavy dishes press down on the ones below them and make them grip better.
Drinks also spill when the tower is shaken hard. A half-empty coffee still counts, but the guest tips less.
Tips, streaks and bonuses
- A dish’s tip depends on its price and on how patient the guest still was: a fast delivery pays about twice as much as a last-second one.
- Every serve in a row raises your streak by 10%, up to ×2. The streak resets when a dish breaks, is eaten by the dog, is stolen by a seagull, or a guest walks out.
- Jenga Yank: serve a dish that has 3 or more dishes on top of it for a +$3 bonus. Yanking from the bottom shakes everything above it, so it is a gamble.
- Nice Catch: a dish that falls off can land back on top of your tower if you move under it. In the Moon Diner’s low gravity, falling dishes float, so catches are much easier.
- Trick Shot: if a falling dish lands on the table of a guest who ordered it, it counts as served with a 60% bigger tip.
If a dish hits a guest on the head, they get splatted, lose a quarter of their patience and scream at you. Very funny. Not great for business.
Hearts and getting fired
Guests who wait too long storm out and you lose a heart. Five walk-outs and you are fired, and the shift ends early with no stars. Watch for red, shaking order bubbles and serve those tables first.
Hazards in each venue
- Café Croissant: a kid who runs into you, a robot vacuum that cleans up spills (and bumps into you), a dog that chases anything with meat and jumps at you, and a cat on the cabinet that leaps on top of your tower when you walk past. The cat squirms for a few seconds, then jumps off with a big kick.
- Grand Wedding: dancers on the dance floor, kids, champagne flutes, live lobsters that wriggle on the tray, and in “The Cake” the half-metre wedding cake for the head table, worth a fortune.
- S.S. Wobbly: the deck rolls with the waves, which tilts your tower and pulls you downhill. Seagulls swoop at your tray: watch for the shadow and keep moving so they miss. In “Perfect Storm” the rain leaves slippery puddles everywhere.
- Moon Diner: low gravity makes the tower slide more easily, but dropped dishes fall slowly. Moonquakes shake everything for almost two seconds after a warning; hold TIPTOE to brace and halve the shaking. The last shift brings the Galaxy Sundae.
Spilled food and drinks leave slippery messes. Walking through them at speed makes the waiter slip and slide.
Shift goals
| Shift | Venue | ★ | ★★ | ★★★ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 First Shift | Café | $70 | $110 | $150 |
| 2 Morning Rush | Café | $150 | $240 | $330 |
| 3 Brunch Chaos | Café | $170 | $270 | $370 |
| 4 Champagne Toast | Wedding | $165 | $265 | $360 |
| 5 Dance Floor Dash | Wedding | $215 | $350 | $480 |
| 6 The Cake | Wedding | $255 | $415 | $570 |
| 7 Calm Seas | Ship | $215 | $350 | $480 |
| 8 Seagull Attack | Ship | $265 | $430 | $590 |
| 9 Perfect Storm | Ship | $240 | $390 | $540 |
| 10 Low-G Lunch | Moon | $300 | $480 | $660 |
| 11 Alien Appetites | Moon | $215 | $350 | $480 |
| 12 Galaxy Rush | Moon | $220 | $360 | $500 |
How to get 3 stars
- Carry 3 to 5 dishes per trip once you are comfortable. Two-plate trips are safe but slow; ten-plate towers are glorious and usually end on the floor.
- Start and stop gently. Let the waiter ramp up instead of tapping keys on and off, and curve around tables instead of zig-zagging.
- Tiptoe for the scary parts: the last steps of a tall tower, crowded aisles, and moonquakes.
- Plan the order. Grab dishes for nearby tables last so they end up on top and come off first.
- Keep the streak alive. A ×2 streak doubles every tip, which matters more than one extra dish.
- Buy Steady Hands first in the shop. It makes your arm soak up jolts, so every tower wobbles less. Grippy Shoes help on spills, Quick Feet make you faster (careful), and Charm makes guests wait longer and tip a little more.
Every shift ends with a review from a very picky critic. Chase the five-star review!