fruit merge

Fruit Merge

FREE on iOS / Android

Phil loves games that don’t ask much of you.

He sees them as a form of meditation. He likes the relaxing way this game burns 15 minutes in a waiting room. We all do, right?

Available on iOS iPhone and Android.

Phil: What I was actually going to say is that I’m playing this sort of game where you’ve got this fruit. You drop a blueberry and you drop another blueberry on it and becomes a larger bit of fruit. It’s all in a box which sort of rapidly expands.

Ed: I’ve seen that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Phil: It’s fun. But what’s kind of interesting about it is –

Ed: It’s sort of Tetris, it’s like a fifth generation Tetris.

Phil: Yeah, it’s a relative of Tetris. Yeah. But everything’s round rather than square.

Ed: And so how does that go? So it lands.. So you put another round thing next to it but – there’s all that space.

Phil: What’s interesting is that when it lands on the surface – what would be the ground at the bottom of the box. It doesn’t move very fast.

Ed: Is the box a blender or just an actual box?

Phil: Oh no, it’s a box. It’s interesting you say that though. I have played something that does that too, but no, what’s interesting is that it stays pretty still when it just lands and that part’s unnatural. But once another object gets involved, you drop another bit of fruit on your first bit of fruit and then it starts to roll around in a reasonably realistic way.

Phil: As you build up the different loads of levels of fruit, as in there could be something like up to five levels if you want to call it that, because you can have say up to about five or six spherical objects on top of each other. But some of them are very small and some of ’em are very large. And what you get is that in the spaces between two large objects, all these little objects can filter in and you have the frustration of thinking, how can I drop a lemon on a lemon to make a bigger fruit?

Ed: So sunflower seeds can come down and go and the spaces.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah. I mean they’re not literally sunflower seeds. I think the smallest thing is a blueberry, but yes. What’s kind of fun about it is the frustration of having these large spheres and in the spaces there’s little small spheres, but you can’t really do anything with them. So you’re kind of frustrated as you’re doing this, but it’s still fun. It’s actually quite a fun game.

The aim of the game, if you will, is to gain points by creating bigger and bigger spheres. It’s not sophisticated.

Ed: Is it only spheres? It’s not cubes of watermelon or anything.

Phil: No, no, but it’s cleverly done. That’s the whole point. I mean, cause it’s sort of elegantly and cleverly done.

Ed: Believable is it?

Phil: The idea is not necessarily that challenging in a way, but it can actually keep you occupied for quite a long time. It clearly shows that the people who made it were thinking about it and they were thinking about the moves and the effect it would have on the player. And that’s why I like certain casual games because they can keep you hooked in with something that seems quite simple, which I enjoy.

So the thing is that I, unlike say some people, anytime I spend gaming will tend to be casual. Casual on my phone gaming. And I find that interesting.

Ed: It’s not Quest based with side quests.

Phil: No, I don’t feel like I’ve got the time for that. So I’m really sort of trying to kill 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there.

Ed: The only people who’ve got the time for that [Quest games] are people in their twenties.

Phil: Yeah, I think that’s true.

Phil: Yeah, that’s right. My score for this casual game…

Ed: So we have to just face the fact bullet. We’re going to make a game [Augment Me] that is a quest. With side quests. A game for people in their twenties.


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