The watermelon game is simple to explain: drop fruit into a box, two of the same fruit merge into the next bigger one, and you try to grow a watermelon before the box overflows. It is much harder to do than to explain. These tips are written for Fruit Merge, the version on Arena13, and most of them work in any watermelon game.
The fruit order
There are 11 fruits, from smallest to largest:
- Cherry
- Strawberry
- Grapes
- Orange
- Persimmon
- Apple
- Pear
- Peach
- Pineapple
- Melon
- Watermelon
Two cherries make a strawberry, two strawberries make grapes, and so on up. In Fruit Merge, two watermelons merging turn back into a cherry, so the game never runs out of room to grow.
You can only ever drop the five smallest fruits, cherry to persimmon, and the very first fruit of a game is always a cherry. Everything from apple up has to be built by merging.
How scoring works
Every merge scores, and bigger merges score more. Two cherries are worth 1 point, two strawberries 3, then 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36 and 45, up to 55 for two melons and 66 for two watermelons. One big merge is worth far more than many small ones, so the score follows the size of what you build, not how many fruits you drop.
How you lose
There is a red dashed line near the top of the box. In Fruit Merge, the moment two fruits touch above that line, the game ends. There is no countdown and no grace period, so a fruit that bounces up off a merge can end a run that looked safe. Leave yourself room near the top.
Tips that work
- Use the preview. The fruit you are holding hangs at the top, and a small "Next" picture shows the one after it. Plan two drops ahead, not one.
- Keep the big fruit in a corner. Build your largest fruit against one side and line the next sizes down beside it, biggest to smallest. Each merge then lands next to the fruit it should merge with next.
- Never bury a small fruit under a big one. A cherry trapped under a melon will sit there all game, taking space you need.
- Do not rush. There is a short half-second wait between drops. Use it. Most runs end from a drop made in a hurry, not from bad luck.
- Watch the bounce. Merges push fruit around. Before you drop next to a pair that is about to merge, think about where the new, bigger fruit will roll.
- Fill gaps with small fruit. A cherry or a strawberry fits into holes that would otherwise be wasted, and it is easy to merge later.
Where the game comes from
Merging fruit in a box became a huge hit in 2023 thanks to a Japanese puzzle game, and since then many free versions have appeared. Fruit Merge is based on an open-source version by TomboFry, released into the public domain, and its fruit physics run on the Matter.js engine. It is credited on our credits page.
How it was made
I wrote this with help from Claude, an AI assistant, and checked the fruit order, scoring and losing rule against the game's code. If you find a tip that works better, tell me.
