Cosmo Merge

Fire. Slump. Fuse.

There is no hand and nothing to drop. You aim a mining laser at the pile and fire, and the rock you hit is gone. Everything resting on it slumps into the gap — a packed pile arches, so taking one piece out is never a clean subtraction. The slump is the whole game: it is what makes two alikes touch, and two alikes that touch fuse into the next of eleven crystals — slag, quartz, amethyst, topaz, sapphire, ruby, emerald, diamond, dark crystal, void shard, and at the summit a singularity.

Every shot pours more ore in over the rim, near where you fired. That is your supply and your pressure at once: the tide that stocks the pile is the tide that will push it over the line.

Nine areas around a sun

Ceres is plain ore and the first dig: each level names the stones to make — a Ruby, a Diamond and an Emerald — and hands you a shot budget. The pieces are mixed into what falls; a fusion at a goal tier locks in as a glowing prize, and all prizes standing wins the level. Finish with shots to spare and you keep all three stars.

Finish Ceres and the rest of the system opens. Every other area is named for the special rock that lives there, and special rocks never fuse:

• Hygiea — Deadstone does nothing at all. Dead weight to shoot out or build around.
• Juno — shoot a Fluxstone and every rock touching it turns into its ore.
• Pallas — a Thunderstone throws the whole pile into the air.
• Eros — Powderstone takes every rock touching it, and one sets off the next.
• Vesta — a Keystone takes every rock of its kind in the pile with it.
• Iris — Shellstones take two shots: the first only cracks the shell.
• Psyche — a shot on a Giltstone is free and pays one back. The shots are tight.
• Hektor — Anchorstones pin where they land. The slump flows around them.

Each area climbs from easy to very hard. The first level starts with a single stone and asks for a Ruby built from the tide; the last starts with a full hopper and asks for a Dark Crystal. In four of the areas, the hardest levels add one more rule: two special rocks that rest touching set each other off.

Rush

No goals. No budget. Ore falls on a clock that keeps getting faster, and your score is the worth of everything still standing. It ends when the pile spills. A daily pile is the same for everyone.

Notes

Single player, one thumb, no timers between sessions. A level takes a minute or two. The game flashes brightly on big fusions and on the win.