The Suika game, and playing the watermelon game online

Suika — Japanese for "watermelon" — is the fruit-dropping puzzle game that went from a quiet projector-app extra to a streaming phenomenon. This page explains where it came from, and where you can play the same style of game free, right now, in your browser.

▶ Play the watermelon game free

Where Suika came from

Suika was created by Aladdin X, a Japanese company known for home projector products, and was originally bundled as a small extra with their popIn Aladdin projector line in 2021. It later reached the Nintendo Switch eShop in Japan, and in late 2023 it exploded: Japanese VTubers and streamers picked it up, clips of near-watermelon runs flooded social media, and the game spent weeks at the top of the Japanese eShop charts before spreading worldwide. The appeal is easy to see — the rules take ten seconds to learn, the physics make every stack a small drama, and "I almost had the watermelon" is the most shareable sentence in puzzle games.

Playing online, without a console

The original is a Switch and projector title, which leaves PC and phone players out. Melon Merge is an independent, free implementation of the same drop-and-merge idea that runs entirely in your web browser: no download, no account, nothing to install, and it works with touch, mouse or keyboard. The chain will feel familiar — cherry up to watermelon — the scoring rewards chains, and the dashed line at the top is just as unforgiving.

To be clear about what this is: Melon Merge is a fan-made-style tribute built from scratch, not the original Suika game, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Aladdin X. If you have a Switch, the original is inexpensive and worth owning; if you just want to play in your browser, that's exactly what this site is for.

New to the watermelon game?

Start with the how-to-play guide for the rules and the full fruit chain, then the tips page when you're ready to chase your first watermelon — corner building and descending order will double your scores within a few runs.