Syrious Squish

Ninety-six little monsters live at the bottom of the water. They watch your finger. When you close in, their eyes go wide. Squish them anyway. Gus is watching.

Ninety-six little monsters live at the bottom of the water. They watch your finger. They blink when they feel like it. When you close in on their group, their eyes go wide and their mouths fall open.

Squish them anyway.

GUS IS WATCHING

Gus is the biggest of them, and he is not exactly on your side. He hangs over the board and talks you through your run in a voice that keeps sliding out of encouragement into something else. "They can see you, you know." Squish a monster that was all on its own and he goes cold and gray: "You took a lonely one. Rude." Pull off something enormous and he comes down off his perch to stomp the group flat himself.

HOW IT PLAYS

Tap a group of touching monsters of the same color. They pulse, a ring draws around them, and the score you would get floats above their heads. Tap again and they pop. Whatever is left falls into the hole, empty columns slide shut, and the board is a different board than it was a second ago.

BIGGER IS BETTER. MUCH BETTER.

Every monster you add to a group is worth more than the one before it. Ten together are worth 356 points. Split those same ten into two fives and you get 152. So this is not really a game about spotting a match. It is a game about how big you can grow something before it falls apart.

You can squish a monster that is all on its own. It costs you 100 points. That one rule is what makes this a thinking game: tidying up has a price, and the last few moves of a round turn into a real decision. Clear the whole board without ever taking a lonely one and your score doubles.

You always see what a group is worth before you take it. Nothing is hidden from you.

FOUR WAYS TO PLAY

Level - Hit the target score and go deeper. There is no last level, and you never lose your place. Put the game down for a week and you come back to the deepest level you ever reached. Timed - 120 seconds. The faster you move, the more each squish is worth, and every second you have left over pays out at the end. Endless - No clock, no target. Just you and the board. Versus - Two players, one phone. Take turns. Your own color is worth double to you. First to 2000 wins.

SIX COLORS, SIX TEMPERAMENTS

Blush, Sky, Yolk, Wisp, Mint and Berry. Each has its own eyes, its own way of blinking, and its own way of panicking when you come for it. The colors were chosen to stay easy to tell apart, including if you are color blind.

Ten pieces of music, written for this game. None of them loop, so none of them wear out. And the squish itself gets deeper, longer and wetter the more monsters go at once.

The rules are borrowed from a puzzle game from 1999, and they have not been watered down since.

WHAT IS NOT IN IT

No ads. No in-app purchases. No sign-in, no account, nothing to connect. Works with no internet at all.

ALSO

Close the game in the middle of a round and it comes back exactly where you left it, same board, still paused. Squish with one tap instead of two, if you would rather. Prefer things calmer? Turn off the screen shake and the bursts. Music and sound effects have their own volume sliders.

"Nothing left down there but water."