How to play
Move your cursor across the top of the playfield to aim. Click (or tap, on mobile) to drop the waiting planet. When two of the same planet touch, they merge into the next size up.
The planet you're holding is shown by the crosshair at the top. The planet coming after it rides inside the moving holder above the drop point. Drop the wrong one in the wrong spot and the stack creeps upward, and the container is open at the top: overfill it and planets get pushed over the rim. There are two ways to lose. If a planet falls out of the container, the run ends. And if the stack climbs high enough that a Venus-sized planet would have nowhere left to drop, that ends it too. A red dashed warning line appears under the ship when the board itself is getting too high, not just because a new planet is falling in. When a stacked planet is in the way of your aim, the waiting planet dims, winces, and shows a red cross: you can't drop there, slide over to a free spot.
You pick a level when you start a new game (three exist for now, more are coming), and its rules hold for the whole run. Level 1 drops Moon through Venus with no Stars, and every point counts x1.2. Level 2 adds Stars to the pool and pays x1.4. Level 3 also takes the rainbow shield off your shakes, so shaking turns risky, and pays x1.5. You win a level by making two Suns touch: they vanish for a big bonus, the next level unlocks, and the run keeps going, so keep chasing the score. Every finished run adds its final score to the points balance shown on the start screen. The LEVEL panel above the playfield shows which level you're in: tap it, or the little info button next to each level in the chooser, for a card listing what drops, which powers are on, and the level's point multiplier.
Chains and superpowers
Every drop starts a fresh chain. The counter resets to zero the moment a new planet leaves your cursor. No slow accumulation across drops, no time window.
Get 3 merges from one drop's cascade and you unlock "Choose Planet". After a short countdown, the planet you're holding starts cycling through the droppable roster, and you drop the moment the one you want comes up.
Get 5 merges from one drop's cascade and you unlock "Destroy". Every planet on the board lights up with a red crosshair. Click any one and every planet of that exact size vanishes off the board.
Unused powers carry over until you spend them. The chain counter doesn't. Drop a new planet and you're back to zero.
Both powers are available in all three current levels. Harder levels down the road may take them away.
Shakes and the rainbow shield
Merging also fills the SHAKES meter on the side. When it fills up, tap it to shake the board: every resting planet pops upward, and the lighter the load stacked on top of it, the higher it flies. It's a way to unstick a messy pile or nudge two planets together. Each tap spends 10% of the bar (the last sliver counts as a full tap, so the meter always drains to zero and starts building again). Tap again while it's still shaking and the next jolt hits a little harder.
While you're shaking, a rainbow arch guards the top of the playfield and the lose checks pause, so a shake can never end your run. The exception is Level 3, which takes the rainbow away: there a careless shake can throw a planet over the wall and out, costing you the game.
The droppables
The small bodies fall from the top, Venus included. Everything else is born from a merge. The pool depends on the level you picked: Level 1 holds the Stars back, Levels 2 and 3 let them drop.
1. Stars
Tiny twinklers. Drop the most often. Two stars merge into a Moon.
2. Moon
Crescent-shaped, with a physics collider that follows the actual silhouette, so it nestles into gaps differently than a round body. Two moons make a Pluto.
3. Pluto
The dwarf planet, small but round. Two Plutos make a Mercury.
4. Mercury
Cratered rock. Two Mercuries become a Mars.
5. Mars
The red wanderer. Two Mars planets fuse into a Venus.
Forged by merging
Everything from here on only exists if you make it. Each step up doubles roughly in mass and gets harder to set up.
6. Venus
Earth's twin in size. Two Venuses merge into Earth. It also falls from the top in every level.
7. Earth
Home, blue and bold. Two Earths fuse into Uranus.
8. Uranus
Pale ice giant. Two Uranuses become Neptune.
9. Neptune
Deep blue and stormy. Two Neptunes form Saturn.
10. Saturn
Ringed beauty. The collider includes the rings as separate pieces, so they tangle with whatever's nearby. Two Saturns become Jupiter.
11. Jupiter
King of the gas giants. Two Jupiters fuse into the final body.
12. Sun: two of them and they're gone
The Sun is the maximum-level body and the only one that doesn't merge upward. When two Suns touch they both vanish in a flash and award a big score bonus.
Getting there means juggling Jupiter pairs. A board with even one Sun is already long-game territory.
The vibe
Quiet space, soft glow, planets with faces. The whole game runs in a small dark window, with no chrome and no menus competing for attention. Score sits in the corner, the next planet hides in the side panel, and the playfield does all the talking.
Physics is deliberately a little arcadey. Heavy planets get a real shove when something light hits them, so chain reactions feel weighty even when the dropping planet is a tiny star. Sleeping bodies wake the instant anything below them merges, so a tower in the middle of a chain reaction collapses naturally instead of leaving floating planets in mid-air.
No timer pressure. The difficulty ramps on its own as your score climbs, but there's nothing to grind and nothing to unlock. Sit with one run, see how far you can take it, restart whenever.
Drop with intent. Chain with patience. Save the Destroy power for the moment the board needs rescuing, not the moment you earn it.