History of Suika Game

The name

Suika (スイカ) is the Japanese word for watermelon, so Suika Game simply means the Watermelon Game. Both names are used interchangeably, and in English the game is often called just Suika. The watermelon is the largest fruit in the game and the goal every player works towards.

2021: Merge Big Watermelon

The idea behind Suika Game did not start in Japan. In January 2021 a Chinese browser game called Merge Big Watermelon (合成大西瓜, Héchéng Dà Xīguā) went viral in China. It was made by the marketing company Meadow Science and played inside web browsers and messaging apps. The rules were the ones we know today: drop fruits into a container, merge identical fruits into bigger ones and try to make a watermelon. The game was a huge success; according to reports, topics related to it received more than 1.4 billion search hits on the Chinese social network Sina Weibo.

Merge Big Watermelon used a somewhat different set of fruits, including kiwis, lemons and tangerines. Its simple, physics-based merging was quickly copied, and the concept spread to other countries, including Japan, within weeks.

April 2021: a game inside a ceiling projector

The Japanese company now called Aladdin X was then known for popIn Aladdin, a ceiling light that combines a lamp, a speaker and a projector. In April 2021 its team released Suika Game as a built-in app for the projector. The game was popular with owners of the device, and the company saw a chance to use it to make its brand better known outside the world of projectors.

December 2021: Nintendo Switch in Japan

On December 9, 2021, Suika Game was released on the Nintendo eShop in Japan. The game was simple and charming, with cute round fruits and a cloud character named Poppy who drops them into the box. Aladdin X has said that the Switch version differs slightly from the projector version, mainly in how heavy the fruits feel and how points are calculated.

For a long time, very little happened. The game sold steadily but attracted almost no attention outside a small audience in Japan.

2023: the streaming boom

That changed in 2023. Japanese live streamers began playing Suika Game around May, and by September its popularity exploded. VTubers, streamers who appear as animated avatars, were credited with a large part of the growth; streams by members of agencies such as Hololive brought the game to millions of viewers. Commentators compared the sudden rise to the way Among Us became a phenomenon in 2020, years after its release.

The game turned out to be ideal for streaming. A round takes only a few minutes, anyone can understand the rules at a glance, and the physics create constant small dramas: a lucky cascade, a fruit that rolls the wrong way, a pile that overflows one fruit too early. Viewers could shout advice, and a popular unofficial challenge asked players to reach 3,000 points in the official game.

In Japan the numbers grew fast. Aladdin X announced one million downloads within about a month of the boom that began in early September 2023, and two million by mid-October.

October 2023: the world gets the game

Until then, players outside Japan who wanted the official game had to create a Japanese Nintendo account. On October 20, 2023, Aladdin X released Suika Game on the eShop in other regions, including Europe, the Americas, Australia, South Korea and Hong Kong. At first the game was only in Japanese; English support arrived in an update a few days later, on October 24, 2023, together with a Halloween theme that turned the watermelon into a pumpkin.

Western streamers picked up the game as well, and by November 2023 it had passed four million downloads. Suika Game became the most downloaded Nintendo Switch eShop game in Japan in 2023, ahead of major Nintendo releases, and repeated that in 2024.

2024: phones, multiplayer and ten million downloads

Aladdin X had once decided against a smartphone version because it feared the game would get lost among countless similar apps. The success of 2023 changed that. An official iOS version launched in Japan on January 1, 2024, followed by an English version in March 2024 and an Android version worldwide on April 11, 2024.

The Switch version gained paid downloadable content in February 2024 with local competitive multiplayer modes, and online multiplayer followed in May 2024. In mid-2024 Aladdin X announced that the game had passed ten million downloads across all official platforms, and by October 2024 the total was reported at about eleven million.

Why it worked

Several things came together. The rules can be explained in one sentence, so new players start immediately. The physics make every game different and produce funny, unexpected moments. The art is friendly and appeals to all ages, which Aladdin X itself has named as a key reason for the success. And the game rewards both luck and skill: a beginner can make a watermelon by accident, while experienced players know how to make it happen on purpose.

The timing mattered too. By 2023 a large audience was watching games on Twitch and YouTube, and short, readable games with a clear goal did very well on those platforms. Suika Game had been waiting for exactly that audience since 2021.

Browser versions and fan games

Like Merge Big Watermelon before it, Suika Game inspired many unofficial versions. Some players wanted to try the game without a console, others wanted to play on a school or work computer. Browser versions such as the one on suikagame.gg follow the same rules and use the same eleven fruits, but they are not made by Aladdin X and differ in details such as artwork, physics and scoring. If you enjoy the game, the official version is worth trying as well.

You can read how this version works in our guides to the fruits and scoring, or see how Suika fits into a longer tradition of puzzle games in Suika Game and other merge puzzles.

Timeline

• January 2021 – Merge Big Watermelon goes viral in China.
• April 2021 – Suika Game launches as a built-in app on popIn Aladdin projectors in Japan.
• December 9, 2021 – Release on the Nintendo eShop in Japan.
• May–September 2023 – Japanese streamers and VTubers make the game popular.
• October 20, 2023 – Release on the eShop outside Japan; English update on October 24.
• November 2023 – Over four million downloads.
• January–April 2024 – Official iOS and Android versions.
• February and May 2024 – Local and online multiplayer on Switch.
• 2024 – More than ten million downloads across platforms.