Mochi Dig

About Mochi Dig

Mochi Dig is a cozy carve-the-terrain water puzzle. The screen is a fixed cross-section of a candy-colored hill: a bowl of blue water at the top, a glass flowerpot with a painted fill line at the bottom, and soft sand everywhere between them. Your finger is a spade - drag anywhere and the sand crumbles away in real time, the grains above tumble into the hole, and the water pours through whatever channel you have opened. Fill the pot to its line and the drooping sprout blooms into a huge flower. That is a level.

The water is a proper simulated fluid: it levels flat, pools, pours, and finds every leak in your plan. It never moves until a cut breaches its bowl, so you can pre-carve the whole route in peace and breach it last, or scribble a canyon and watch the chaos. Sand carves instantly; clay must be scrubbed in place; granite rock is uncarvable and has to be routed around; purple goo flows like water but fizzes clean water away on contact and upsets the flower if it reaches the pot.

Three residents live in the dirt, each a puzzle piece with a face. Bumble the boulder beetle naps across the handiest route until a splash of water tickles him loose to roll downhill. Momo the mole backfills your freshest tunnel with fresh sand, so you either out-carve him or fence him off with a puddle. Peppy the geyser burps pooled water upward over rock overhangs - the only way to lift water uphill. Rooty the root monster slurps any water within reach until you route outside him or feed him full and he falls asleep.

There are 20 hand-tuned levels, each cycling through five garden palettes (Meadow, Desert, Jungle, Candy, and Moonlight). They ramp from a plain sand hill up to a graduation exam with twin pots, clay shafts, geyser lifts and a root to sidestep. Beat all 20 and Endless mode opens: generated hills that start at the final level's difficulty and keep ramping, with every material and resident active from the first endless hill. There is no timer, no score, no way to get permanently stuck, and finishing any level always lights up all three stars.

How to play Mochi Dig

1. Look at the hill: a bowl of blue water sits at the top, a glass flowerpot with a painted fill line waits at the bottom.
2. Drag one finger anywhere across the soft sand - it crumbles away under your finger and leaves an open channel.
3. Carve a path from under the water bowl down to the mouth of the pot; the moment the channel breaches the bowl, water starts to pour.
4. Watch the water find its own way down and pool inside the pot; keep carving to guide it around rocks, clay and purple goo.
5. If the water gets stuck in a puddle, carve underneath it to send it onward - carving is always free and never runs out.
6. Fill every pot to its painted line and the sprout blooms into a flower to finish the level and open the next hill.
7. If your water ever runs short, a little cloud refills the bowl for one droplet-heart - three hearts, then a friendly retry card.

Controls

Tips & strategy

• The water waits for you: nothing pours until a cut reaches the bowl, so plan the whole channel first and breach it last if you like a tidy line.
• Sand crumbles, so cut a little above where you want the floor of your channel - the grains above will tumble down and fill in.
• Clay is a dam, not a wall. Hold your finger still to scrub through it, and use unbroken clay to hold water back until you are ready.
• Granite rocks can never be carved - route around them, and remember they make handy walls to bounce water off toward the pot.
• Keep clean water well clear of purple goo: where the two touch, both fizz away into smoke, and that is supply you cannot get back.
• A single splash of water tickles Bumble the beetle loose - trickle a little onto him and he rolls off your route on his own.
• Park a puddle in Momo the mole's path and he squeaks and backs off, so a bit of standing water fences your tunnels from being backfilled.
• Rooty the root only reaches so far - either carve your channel outside his arms, or spend a little water to feed him full and he falls asleep.

Game features

• One-finger carving: drag to scoop soft sand and open channels - you never touch or aim the water, only the dirt.
• A real simulated fluid that levels, pools, pours, and finds every leak, so the same cut can flood a dozen different ways.
• Five materials that each bend the puzzle: instant sand, scrub-only clay, uncarvable granite, clean water, and clean-water-eating purple goo.
• Cute residents with real personalities: Bumble the napping boulder beetle, Momo the tunnel-backfilling mole, Peppy the water-flinging geyser, and thirsty Rooty the root monster.
• 20 hand-tuned levels that ramp from a plain sand hill to a twin-pot graduation exam using every material and resident.
• Endless mode past level 20: generated hills with every mechanic on from the first one, ramping deeper and trickier the further you go.
• Twin pots from level 10 that demand a Y-shaped split, and geyser lifts that turn 'down is the only way' on its head.
• A soft-fail safety net: a rescue cloud refills your bowl when water runs genuinely short, costing one of three droplet-hearts, then a friendly retry.
• A hill that can never dead-end: a sealed bedrock bowl, guaranteed carvable routes, and re-carvable backfill mean no move ever locks you out.
• Synthesized sound throughout: a sandy carve scritch, clay scrub, rock tinks, a pouring trickle that swells with the flow, a rising pot glug, and a bloom jingle.

Let the Water Do the Thinking

Most digging games hand you a shovel and a pile of dirt and leave the drama to a timer. Mochi Dig is quieter and far stranger: the whole hill is a real material under your finger, and the water is a real fluid with a mind of its own. You never touch the water, never aim it, never steer a single drop. All you do is scoop soft sand out of the way, and then gravity - honest, simulated gravity - decides whether your channel works. That gap between the cut you make and the flood you unleash is the entire game, and it turns a one-finger scribble into something an adult will quietly replay to find the cleaner line.

The hill is drawn as a cross-section, like a slice cut from a garden with a giant knife. A dirt bowl of bright blue water sits at the top; a glass-bellied flowerpot with a painted fill line waits at the bottom on dark bedrock; between them is a body of granular sand that crumbles the instant your finger drags across it. Because the water never moves until a cut actually breaches its bowl, a careful child can pre-carve the entire route and pop the cork last, while a bold one just gouges a canyon and watches the flood pour. Both are correct. There is no wrong way to play, only tidier and messier ways to win.

What keeps twenty levels alive is that the verb never changes - drag to carve - while the material and the residents keep bending what a good cut means. Uncarvable granite shelves force detours. Sticky clay has to be scrubbed, not swiped, which quietly turns it into a dam you open on purpose. Purple goo eats clean water on contact, so a sloppy route bleeds your supply into smoke. A napping boulder beetle can be tickled loose with a trickle, a goggled mole backfills your tunnels with fresh sand, a cheerful geyser flings water upward over ledges, and a thirsty root monster drinks anything within reach until you either route around him or deliberately feed him full. Each one has a face, and each one teaches its own counter without a single word of text.

Nothing here is timed and nothing is scored. Every pot fills to a line you can see, the stars are always three, and when the water genuinely runs short a worried little rescue cloud simply cries a refill and costs you one of three droplet-hearts - so a level can lose momentum but never dead-end. Clear all twenty hand-built hills and Endless mode opens: generated cross-sections that start at the final level's difficulty and keep climbing, with every material and every resident present from the very first one. It is a physics toy, a gardening chore, and a routing puzzle wearing the same soft candy coat, and it all runs off a single dragged finger.