A field guide to Donut Place
THE PROGRESS METER
Cash goes up and down all session. The meter at the top of the screen only goes one way, which makes it the closest thing the game has to a score — and the game never explains what it is counting.
- TESTED the meter read at four points in one session, 2026-11-05
- IN-GAME PROGRESS, printed with a percentage beside it
- OFFICIAL ONLY no store page mentions progress, levels or a completion target
- NEEDS CHECK what increments it, whether it caps at 100%, and what happens at the top
What we actually saw
The meter sits at the top centre of the screen, printed as PROGRESS with a
percentage. In our session it read:
| when | reading |
|---|---|
| standing outside the shop, before entering | 0% |
| after buying tables and serving the first customers | 6.82% |
| after the HR prompt appeared | 9.09% |
| a minute later, with the room filling | 13.64% |
| while cleaning up and serving a second wave | 20.45% |
| after the staff panel opened | 25% |
| later still, customers queuing at the door | 27.27% |
It rose in steps and never fell, across two sessions and a reload. The steps did not line up with any single action we could name — one jump happened while we were carrying rubbish to the bin, not while serving.
That is the whole measurement. Everything below is what the number does not tell us.
It is not the cash counter
Cash is the green bill icon in the right-hand corner: it started at 400 and we watched it move to 124, then 60, then 9, then back up to 124 as tables were bought and customers paid. Money is a budget you spend inside the shop.
The meter never went down. If spending hurt progress, buying four tables would have knocked it back, and it did not.
What we cannot say
- what increments it. Prime candidates are customers served and money earned,
but we saw
6.82%before we could name the last thing that happened. - whether it caps at 100%, and what the game does when it gets there.
whether it is shared across sessions— it survives a reload. We reloaded the tab twice by accident and both times the shop came back at27.27%with the same54in cash, so the meter and the balance are saved locally.
Those three are the first things to measure in a longer session, in that order, because the third one decides whether a save exists at all.
Last checked against the client: 2026-11-05 · client web build 2026-11-05