Harish's Sweet Sight

Photos of Indian sweets, one at a time: name it, say which state it comes from, and your score keeps counting even with no signal.

Who this is for

Harish Agrawal, 54, runs a sweet shop in Sarafa Bazaar, Indore. Thirty-one sweets in the glass tray, two counter boys, and a queue that doubles after eight in the evening. A family from Kochi points at the pale yellow slab and asks what it is. He says Mysore pak for the fifth time that morning, while eleven people behind them wait to be served.

How the job is done today

Harish keeps a laminated chart taped near the weighing scale, but the print has gone soft and nobody reads sideways in a crowd. So he explains by mouth, again and again. On Fridays he posts one tray photo in his customer WhatsApp group, about ninety people in it, and asks which sweet this is and from where. Replies come in all night. Somebody answers correctly at 11 pm, somebody else answers the same at 6 am after the answer is already three messages above, and a few send only a thumbs up. He counts the right guesses by scrolling with his thumb until he loses his place.

The screens, in order

1. Pick a tray — Lets a stranger start a round in one tap, either a mixed tray or one state at a time, without making an account first.
2. Name this sweet — Shows one photo large enough to see the texture, with four names to choose from.
3. Where is it from — Asks which part of India the sweet belongs to, after the name has been guessed.
4. The answer card — Reveals the real name, the state, and one line about what it is made of, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
5. Your streak — Shows how many rounds a person has played, their longest run of correct answers, and quietly notes that older rounds are waiting to reach the shop when signal returns.

What it keeps track of

• Sweets — the common name, other names it goes by, which state it belongs to, its photo, one line on what it is made of
• Rounds — which player, which sweets came up, what they answered, right or wrong, when they played, whether it has reached the shop yet
• Player — the name they typed for themselves, total score, longest correct run, which states they keep getting wrong
• Photo sets — which set is sitting on this phone, how many sweets in it, when it was last refreshed

The one decision that matters

Do the photos live inside the app from the moment it is installed, or does each photo come down from the shop when the question appears. Fetching per question keeps the app small, but it fails at exactly the hour people play: a bus past Dewas, a train berth, the basement floor of a bazaar building. The app would sit on a grey square. So ship a starter tray of around forty sweets and their photos inside the app itself, sized down so the install stays reasonable on an older phone. Bigger sets, regional ones, come down only when the phone finds wifi, and until then the person never sees that anything is missing. The round must always be playable the second the app opens.

What to leave out of the first version

No leaderboard, no friends, no sharing a score to a group. A ranking needs everyone connected at the same moment, which is the one thing this app cannot promise. Also no login. Asking a stranger in a queue to make an account is how you lose them at the second screen. Let them type a name if they want one, and let the streak on their own phone be the whole reward for now.

How you would know it worked

Someone starts a round on the Indore to Bhopal bus with no bars the entire way, finishes eleven questions, and finds the streak still there the next morning. Then at the counter they ask Harish for Mysore pak by name, without pointing.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a sweet shop in Indore and people never know the names of what they are buying, so I want a small phone app where anyone can open it and see a photo of one Indian sweet, pick its name out of four options, then pick which state it comes from, and after that see the correct answer with one line about what it is made of. It should keep their score and their longest correct run. The important part is that it must work with no signal at all, so the first set of about forty sweets and their photos should already be inside the app when it is installed, and their scores should save on the phone and go up to me later whenever they find internet. No login, they just type a name if they feel like it.