FruitSquash

Once every so often you stumble upon a nutty little game that puts a smile on your face, one such game is the equally quirkily titled FruitSquash…

For those of you familiar with Tetris, Quadrapop and Bejewelled, you will find this certainly tickles the taste-buds in just the right way. As the name suggests you have a variety of fruit for you line up in the best way (e.g. 3 or more touching) and then you can hit the plunger to watch them get squashed and see your points rise in equal satisfaction. As with puzzle games you have to work and think laterally as well as keep at least one step ahead to get a respectable score. The fruits are produced at the top of the screen in a kind of conveyer belt motion, these fruits slide down a row and the cycle continues. The object of the game is to keep the board clear and prevent the fruits from touching the bottom of the screen.

As you manage to clear the rounds you will see new fruits getting introduced to the mix and the speed increase – so swiftly this game changes from a casual few presses to a frantic Rubik’s Cube-esque sliding motion all over the place in an attempt to squash or be squashed! Unlike the games mentioned above, the fruits don’t automatically clear themselves when they’ve been joined together forming a chain, you have to squash them by hand – or rather by a plunger device. Unfortunately this isn’t as straight forward as it could be, as you can only squish the fruit if you have a direct line of sight, needless to say, things can get messy and your hard work can swiftly be undone with a careless slide or squish!

You have several levels to try and become champion of using a grid size you can pick 6x7, 6x9, 8x8 or 8x10 – in layman’s terms they get bigger and more difficult as you have to keep an eye on all the pesky fruit descending in unrelenting fashion. Once you’ve picked your level it’s time to assume the position which normally involves pulling funny faces (tongue sticking out the side of your mouth optional), as you try to rack up the points! No doubt within a few moments you’ll be quite addicted to this challenging little pocket game and if you’re not careful you’ll be losing many hours of sleep trying to improve or just through losing track of it by being so absorbed!

I’m unsure if this game will ever get the same widespread fame that the other titles mentioned at the beginning of this review but I certainly hope it does – and just remember where you heard about it first! Definitely download this game as you won’t be disappointed with it! Now if you don’t mind, I must get back to trying to beat my best score!

Rating 95%

Positives

Highly addictive

Very tricky despite being such a simple game

You can speed the fruit’s production up by pressing ‘UP’ – only do this if you are crazy!

Negatives

Can quickly forget everything around you by being too absorbed into it

You can lose so quickly if you lapse in concentration