About Fruit Catcher
Fruit Catcher has you sliding a basket along the bottom of the screen to catch fruit falling from the sky. Miss three pieces of fruit and the game is over, and catching a single bomb ends it instantly.
How to play
- The game starts straight away. Fruit and bombs drop from random positions along the top of the screen.
- Each fruit caught in the basket scores one point.
- You have 3 lives. Every fruit that hits the ground costs one life.
- About 18 percent of falling objects are bombs. Catching a bomb ends the game immediately, no matter how many lives you have left.
- Bombs that fall past the basket and hit the ground are harmless.
- Things fall faster the longer you play, and they appear more often: the gap between drops shrinks from 0.9 seconds to its minimum of 0.35 seconds after about a minute.
Controls
- Mouse: the basket follows the pointer left and right while it is over the game.
- Touch: press and drag on the game; the basket follows your finger.
- Keyboard: hold Left and Right arrows, or A and D, to move the basket.
Tips and strategy
- Bombs are the bigger danger. One bomb is game over, while a missed fruit only costs one of three lives, so when in doubt, let a fruit go rather than risk the bomb next to it.
- Prioritise the lowest fruit on screen, then plan a path to the next one, keeping the basket away from any bomb on the way.
- The basket catches things near its centre, so position it under a fruit rather than catching it with the edge.
- Use the mouse or your finger later in the game. The basket jumps straight to the pointer, while the keys move it at a fixed speed that can be too slow when fruit is far apart.
- Watch for fruit and bombs falling at different speeds; a slow fruit above a fast bomb can swap order on the way down.
Background
Catching games, in which the player moves a container along the bottom of the screen to collect falling objects, are among the oldest video game designs. A famous early example is Activision's Kaboom! from 1981 for the Atari 2600, where players caught bombs dropped by a mad bomber. The format has stayed popular because it is easy to understand at a glance and naturally gets harder as the objects fall faster.
Questions
- What happens if I catch a bomb?
- The game ends immediately, even if you still have all three lives. Bombs that miss the basket do no harm.
- Does it get harder?
- Yes. Objects fall a little faster for every second you survive, and new ones appear more frequently until the spawn rate tops out after about a minute.
- Where is my best score saved?
- Your highest fruit count is stored in your browser's local storage on this device.