Fruit Merge

Fruit Merge is a cheerful physics puzzle about a jar that is always one fruit away from overflowing. You drop fruit in from the top. They tumble, roll and stack up like the real thing. Whenever two fruits of the same kind touch, they squeeze together with a pop into the next, bigger fruit. Keep merging, keep the jar from spilling over, and see how far up the chain you can climb.

How to play

• Drag your finger or move the mouse to slide the fruit along the top of the jar. A dotted line shows where it will fall.
• Let go or click to drop it. The next fruit appears a moment later, and the small bubble at the bottom shows the one after that.
• On a keyboard, aim with the left and right arrow keys and drop with Space.
• Only the five smallest fruits are ever dropped. Everything bigger has to be grown by merging.
• Watch the dotted line near the top. If any fruit stays above it for about two seconds, the jar is full and the game ends. The line flashes red as a warning.

The fruit chain

Cherry, strawberry, grape, lemon, orange, apple, peach, coconut, pineapple, melon and finally watermelon. Each merge scores more than the last: a strawberry is worth 1 point, a grape 3, a lemon 6, and a watermelon 55. Get two watermelons to touch and they burst in a shower of fireworks for a 200 point bonus, clearing a huge space in the jar.

Tips

• Keep big fruit together on one side and small fruit on the other, so new merges don't get trapped under a giant.
• Drop small fruit next to their twins. A cherry wedged between two apples can block a corner for the rest of the game.
• Check the next fruit before you drop. Sometimes it is better to park the current one in a safe spot and let the next one make the merge.
• Chain reactions are worth chasing: a new fruit that lands beside its twin merges again straight away.
• Use the edges. Fruit rolls off rounded piles, so the walls are the steadiest places to build.

Extras

Once per game you can shake the jar to jostle stuck fruit loose, and once per game you can pop any single fruit. When the jar fills up you can continue once, which empties the top 40% of the jar so you have real room to keep going. The pause button (or Esc) stops the jar, and has the rules and a new-game option. Your best score and your biggest fruit are saved in this browser, and the jar you are playing is saved too, so you can close the tab and carry on later.