The Suika Watermelon Game Excels in Its Simplicity

I first heard about Suiko Game (Watermelon Game in English) because of streamers. I follow a bunch of them for news-related purposes, and they’re all playing. I started with the free version, which you can play in your browser. I enjoyed it and the price for the official Switch version is right. (It’s 240円 in the Japanese eShop, which is about $1.60.) Now that I’ve (unintentionally) spent about five hours playing, I get it. It’s the simple nature and ability to go very right or very wrong in an instant that sells this gem. 

Suika Game’s premise is simple. You drop foods from above into a box. If they overflow out of the space, you lose. Making ones of the same type match transforms them into the next type in the line. So cherries are the tiniest. Two cherries combine into a strawberry. Two grapes become an orange. Two oranges become an apple. You get the idea. The “best” one is the coveted watermelon. You get points for how many you manage to make and fill the space with before they hit the line at the top, overflowing and ending the game. However, as you don’t know which fruits could show up next when you get to make a drop, it’s impossible to really plan. You need to go with the flow.

The thing about this matching game is the physics. Which, by the way, are far better in the Switch version. Dropping fruits cause them to roll, perhaps slightly bounce, and move. Shapes can get awkward. As bigger fruits appear when they combine, the action causes buckling, awkward spacing, and sudden inabilities to access ones you could before. One lucky move could cause a chain effect, Puyo Puyo-style. However, it could also doom you and undo some strategy you’d attempted to enact. 

However even if the worst happen, the brief nature of Suika Game and knowing that it might honestly not be your fault you failed makes the concept of replaying even more attractive. This is a short game. It’s easy to pick up and learn. When I started first playing it, it was in a focused manner. However, sometimes I also play it before bed now to help settle down. It’s soothing in its simplicity.

The only downside is that the official version of Suika Game isn’t available worldwide. (There are already copycats. They aren’t the same.) The browser-based version can be played in any region. If you use a browser with an automatic translation option, it will even translate things. But even without that, there’s no language barrier. Start the game. Drop different kinds of fruits adjacent to each other so they match. When the box fills up and the round ends, see the leaderboard of scores or retry. 

Suiko Game really can be a delight, even if it is occasionally infuriating when it goes awry, and the lure of maybe one day getting a watermelon is too strong. I haven’t done it yet. My best scores only get to the 2,000s. But I’m okay if it takes a while. It’s worth people’s time.

Suika Game (Watermelon Game) is available on the Switch in Japan and in browsers worldwide.