Dessert Drop: Free Online Merge Puzzle

Dessert Drop is our own merge-drop puzzle, set in a glass jar on a bakery counter. Sweets drop in from the top, one at a time. When two of the same sweet touch, they merge into the next one up the ladder: two gumballs make a peppermint, two peppermints make a jelly drop, and so on through lollipops, macarons, cookies, donuts, puddings, pies and chocolate cakes, all the way to the party cake at the top.

The catch is room. Only the five smallest sweets ever drop in, so everything bigger has to be built in the jar, and the jar fills up fast. Keep the pile under the dashed line near the top. If a sweet comes to rest above it for two seconds, the game is over. The line turns orange the moment something pokes over and flashes red as time runs short, so you always get a moment to save it.

Every merge scores the new sweet's value, and bigger sweets are worth more. One drop that sets off a chain of merges is a combo, and the chain multiplies the points, up to five times. Two party cakes meeting vanish in a burst for 150 points and free up a lot of space. A dotted guide shows exactly where your sweet will land, and the next sweet is always on show, so you can plan the drop after this one.

The physics is written for this game: sweets roll, settle and push each other around the way you would expect, and a merged sweet swelling up nudges its neighbours aside. Each sweet has its own little face, and the jar, the bakery and the bunting are all drawn in code, with merge pops that rise in pitch as you climb the ladder and a gentle background tune. On a phone the jar fills the screen with the ladder above it; on a wider screen the score and the ladder sit beside it.

Your best score goes on the leaderboard, and the game keeps track of your merges, your biggest sweet, your best combo and how many party cakes you have made. Dessert Drop is free to play in your browser with no download or sign-up. Aim with the mouse, a finger or the arrow keys, and drop with a click, a tap or the space bar.