Suika Game

Suika Game (also called Watermelon Game, suika is rōmaji for watermelon, or simply Suika) is a Japanese puzzle video game by Aladdin X, which combines the elements of falling and merging puzzle games. The game was originally developed for the company’s digital projectors in April 2021 and due to its initial success, released on the Nintendo eShop in December 2021 in Japan. After gaining popularity, it was made available globally in October 2023. The concept originates from a Chinese browser game titled Merge Big Watermelon that was released in January 2021.

The game involves the player trying to build a high score by dropping fruits into a container without having them overflow out of the container. To earn points the player must combine two of the same fruits, which creates a new fruit in the game’s fruit cycle. The game allows players to view other player’s ranks through an online leaderboard. Suika Game is a puzzle game focusing on stacking objects in a confined space, reminiscent of Tetris. The player, represented as a cloud called Poppy, is tasked with dropping a wide range of fruits in a box, aiming for the highest score without having a single fruit cross the line at the top of the box and overflowing out, or else the game would end. 

In order to keep the fruits from overflowing out of the box, the player must match two types of fruits in order for them to merge into the next biggest fruit in the cycle, increasing the player’s score. The bigger the fruits that merge the larger the point bonus is, with the largest merger the player can achieve resulting in the titular watermelon. If two watermelons merge, they poof from the box. Suika Game has no time limit to rush the player with; unlike in games such as Tetris, the fruits are affected by physics causing them to hit off each other and roll away from where they were initially dropped. 

Sometimes the pressure released by two fruits merging is enough to send a fruit out of the box and end the game. There are 11 fruits in the game and they go in a cycle from smallest to largest: the cherry, the strawberry, the grapes, the dekopon, the persimmon, the apple, the nashi pear, the peach, the pineapple, the melon, and the titular watermelon. However, the fruits that the player can drop into the box are limited to the five smallest in the cycle. The order the player can drop the fruit is completely random, but they can see the fruit that is coming up one turn ahead. 

For the Chinese “Merge Big Watermelon” browser game version, the order of the fruit is slightly different as the game features different fruits such as kiwis, lemons and tangerines in its cycle. Suika Game also features an online leader board to compare other players’ ranks online, being split between scores from “daily”, “monthly” and “overall”. This leader board can keep track of the player’s own score too. This ability to share and compare points leads both players and livestreamers to create an unofficial challenge that requires them to reach at least 3,000 points in-game.