It was a few weeks ago that ‘Banana’ surfaced on Steam, and gamers worldwide were promptly perplexed by the sheer number of people flooding the platform to play it. Of course, it has since been surmised that many of the ‘players’ are actually bots, but that’s another story. At the time of writing, Banana is the third most popular game on Steam, beating out Elden Ring, PUBG, and The First Descendant – and all you do in the game is repeatedly click a banana.
There’s more to it than that, of course. It’s effectively a money printing machine, with users regularly unlocking special bananas that they can sell to generate real-world cash. It’s not alone, though – since Banana soared on Steam, some fruity-themed copycats have emerged.
Fruit Salad
It started with Banana, and now we have Melon and Tapple.
Each game in this niche has the same core principle, but it could be argued that no copycat title will be able to reach the levels of grandeur achieved by Banana, which has been slated even by the game’s developer. It’s a laughable title, but it’s proving to be a hit, with some users reporting making triple digits by selling their rare banana skins.
Melon was released on July 1 and has since peaked at 14,274 users on Steam, while Tapple dropped on June 29 and has picked up a peak of 17,111 players. Neither game is coming close to touching Banana’s position in the charts, but you need to give them credit for trying to capitalise on the hype.
Here’s the spiel for Tapple, to give you an idea of how these games work:
Welcome to Tapple, the addictive clicker game where your tapping skills can lead you to an unimaginable amount of Tapples! Upgrade your clicking power, automate your income, and unlock exciting new levels. Start your journey with a single click and watch your Tapple Empire grow.
It’s money for nothing, provided the game takes off. Presently, nobody is making money from Tapple or Melon, but Banana is still soaring high and has a peak player count record of almost one million players. That’s not bad at all, considering it probably took all of about five minutes to develop.
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