The squeeze
Room only goes one way
Every drop costs space and only a merge returns any. So a run isn't really a score going up, it's a debt you're either clearing or not.
All games
Droptide. Drop. Merge.
Droptide. Drop. Merge.
Panic.
Drop one in, merge it into something bigger, drop the next. Nine creatures deep, Spark to Leviathan, in a jar of moving water. There's only so much room, and merging is the only way to make more.
How it works
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Drop
Pick a spot along the top and let go. A guide line shows you where it lands, which helps right up until it doesn't.
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Merge
Two of the same meet and become one bigger thing. That is the entire rule, and it will take you a while to get bored of it.
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Make room
Merging is the only thing that gives space back. Anything you drop that doesn't merge is room you've spent.
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Mind the line
There is a dashed line near the top, and resting above it for a couple of seconds ends the run. It fills up faster than it feels like it's filling up.
The catch
The reprieve
One bomb, and only at the end
Build something big enough and you bank a bomb. You can't spend it when you'd like to — only at the instant the run would otherwise have ended, on whichever one you think is holding the pile up.
Ways to play
- Tide
- The whole game, and the one everybody gets. Take as long as you like over every drop; nothing is counting.
- Riptide
- Two and a half seconds and the water takes it out of your hand. Same pile, same physics, no thinking time.
- Undertow
- The same clock at 1.3 seconds. You aim on the way past, and mostly you are aiming at where you were going anyway.
- Auto
- Nobody plays. The pool blooms on its own, at whatever pace you set it, and you watch how deep it gets.
- Colours
- Four palettes across the nine creatures. Switching one repaints a merge that is already in the air.
- On the phone
- Free on iPhone and iPad, with Game Center leaderboards and a set of milestones. It plays on a plane; nothing is fetched to run it.
- In a browser tab
- The same game at droptide.unhero.com, installable to a home screen if you want it there. No account, no screen asking you to rate it first.
- What it costs
- Tide is free for good, in both. Riptide, Undertow, Auto and three of the palettes are one purchase between them — and you get a whole run of each of the three before it asks.
Get it
Droptide is free, and about as far from a commitment as a game gets.
Open the tab, drop a few, close the tab. Or don't close the tab. It'll be in the same state either way. There is one purchase in it, for the three modes that aren't Tide and three of the four palettes, and the game never asks you about it until you've played them.
- Genre
- Merge puzzle
- Platforms
- Web, iPhone, iPad
- Price
- Free, one unlock