Fruit Stack.

How to play Fruit Stack

1. Press Play, then choose Classic to continue or start a basket. You can also pick Daily, Orchard Trail, Rush or Zen from the menu.
2. Look at the fruit in your hand and the two previews. Decide which matching fruit or open gap you want to reach.
3. Move the pointer, drag a finger or use the arrow keys to aim. The dotted guide and outline show where the fruit will first touch the pile.
4. Release, click, or press Space to drop. There is a short pause before the next fruit is ready, and a release just before then is remembered.
5. Bring equal fruit together to merge them. Several merges from one drop form a chain worth extra points. Two watermelons make a harvest.
6. Watch the dotted line. If a settled fruit stays above it, a red countdown starts. Merge or let the pile settle before it runs out. In levels, finish the goal shown at the top before you run out of drops, time or room.

Make your move

About Fruit Stack

Fruit Stack is a drop-and-merge physics puzzle set on a shelf in a sunlit greenhouse. You hold one fruit above a glass basket, choose where to let it go, and watch it fall into the pile. When two fruit of the same kind touch, they merge into the next size. Merging makes space, but every new fruit needs somewhere to land, so each drop is a small decision about where the pile should grow and which pairs you want to bring together.

There are ten fruit characters: cherry, apricot, plum, lime, orange, apple, peach, coconut, melon and watermelon. Each has its own colour, surface detail and face. They blink while they wait, grin after a merge and look worried when they sit above the line. Only the four smallest fruit are dealt. Everything larger has to be grown, and two watermelons that touch make a harvest: both leave the basket for a ten thousand point bonus, clearing a huge amount of room.

The physics were built for this game. Each fruit is a round body that rolls with real spin, loses speed to friction and settles when it stops moving. A settled pile goes completely still, so the basket you see is the basket you plan around. A drop guide shows where the fruit in your hand will first touch the pile, and the Next and Then previews show the two fruit that follow it.

Scoring rewards bigger merges and chains. A merge is worth the value of the fruit it makes, doubling with every size from twenty points for an apricot to 5,120 for a watermelon. When one drop sets off several merges in a row, each link in the chain is worth a quarter more than the last, up to three times the base value. Banners, juice splashes and rising chimes mark every chain.

Classic is the endless mode, and your best score is kept on this device. Daily deals the same fruit to everyone on the same UTC date and adds one twist, such as pegs in the basket, a narrower crate, a lower line or bigger drops. Finishing a Daily keeps your streak going, and you can share your result. Rush is a 100 second score attack in which apples and bigger merges add time. Zen removes the overflow line and gives you free tools and an undo button.

The Orchard Trail has forty levels across four orchards. Goals include growing a certain fruit, making several of one size, chaining merges from a single drop and reaching a score. Some levels add pegs, narrow crates, low lines, fruit already in the basket, drop limits or a clock. Every level uses a fixed fruit order, and each one has been finished by a replayed route using the game rules, so every basket can be completed. Progress, scenes, stars and the fruit guide are saved in this browser. No account or download is needed.

A little help for your next high score

• Keep the largest fruit low and to one side, with smaller fruit stepping down beside them. Chains are much easier when sizes sit next to their partners.
• Use the Then preview to plan two drops together. Setting up a pair is often worth more than dropping into the deepest gap.
• Do not bury a cherry or an apricot under a much larger fruit. Small fruit trapped at the bottom are hard to reach later.
• The guide shows the first touch, not where the fruit will settle. Round fruit roll off slopes, so give them a moment before judging a drop.
• In Rush, apples and bigger merges buy time, so aim for size rather than lots of small merges.
• Save Shake for a pile with small fruit stuck in gaps, and Pluck for the one fruit that blocks a merge. Swap is best when the fruit in hand has nowhere good to go.

Good questions