How Fruit Drop works

Tap any fruit on the tree. Nothing is out of reach, so the question is never which one you are allowed to take, it is where the one you take will end up.

A tapped fruit falls. If it lands on another fruit it rolls off the side it overhangs and keeps falling, all the way down the grass and into the chute. That is what usually happens, and it is what you want.

Sometimes the roll has nowhere to go: another fruit is sitting right beside the one it landed on, or the trunk or the edge of the tree is in the way. Then it wedges there and stays put. Look at what is beside the fruit below before you tap: a gap or a wall means stuck. Not every level has a trunk, so check the middle of the tree before you count on one.

When a fruit reaches the bottom of the tree it lands on the grass and slides down the slope to the chute. A fruit lying in the bottom row between it and the chute stops it there, so the bottom row comes apart from the inside out.

A wedged fruit cannot be tapped. It comes loose when you tap the fruit it is sitting on, or when a fruit lands squarely on top of it, and it always reaches the chute before whatever freed it.

The tree is taller than the screen. There are more rows above the ones you can see, and the counter includes them. When the bottom row is completely empty the whole tree drops a row and a new one comes into view. So sometimes the right move is to spend a slot on a fruit you have no partner for, purely to clear the bottom row and bring the one you need into reach.

The chute holds four. When a fruit lands on one of its own kind the pair pops into the basket. Fill all four with no pair together and the level is over.

Undo and Shuffle are up to the cache owner and are usually switched off, because they undo exactly the sort of planning the tree is asking for. If the owner turned one on you will see its button above the tree with the number you have left.

Losing a level costs only that level. You get a brand new tree for it, and the levels you have already cleared stay cleared.