One yo-yo, one night shift, and a factory full of bouncing Jellybumps.
Sugar Spindle is a split-and-pop arcade game set in the Gobbleworth Confectionery Works. You play Dottie Spindle, the night-shift taster, and your only tool is a yo-yo that stays tied to your hand: it climbs while you hold throw, follows you as you walk, and pops anything it touches on the way up and on the way back down. Every Jellybump you hit splits into two smaller ones until the tiniest pop for good. The campaign is 20 stages over four factory floors, each with its own hazards and a boss at the end, with up to three stars per stage; Sugar Storm is the endless mode for the leaderboard. (Build A, game version 0.7.)
STORY & LORE
The night the vats boiled over
Somebody left the heat on under the gum vats at Gobbleworth's, and by midnight the candy had come alive. Round, glossy and very bouncy, the Jellybumps are spilling down every floor of the factory. The day crew went home hours ago. Dottie Spindle, junior taster, hair pinned up round a spindle of yellow thread, picks up the yo-yo from her apron pocket and starts work.
Four floors
Floor 1 is the Gum Vats, the tutorial floor. Floor 2 is the Licorice Line, where conveyor belts drag you along the floor. Floor 3 is the Fizz Lab, with sugar-glass shelves that stop your yo-yo and steam vents that blast blobs into the air. Floor 4 is the Deep Freeze: an ice floor you slide on, floating marshmallows, and icicles dropping from the ceiling.
CHARACTERS & ENEMIES
Dottie SpindleNight-shift tasterHEROSmall, quick and armed with a yo-yo. She walks at a steady pace (faster on Sugar Rush), slides about on ice, and gets pushed along by conveyor belts.
Gobstopper GranFloor 1 bossBOSSA huge, slow gobstopper in reading glasses. Every third hit she spits out baby gumdrops, and she spits one more every six seconds anyway. When she breaks she drops two medium gum blobs.
Licorice LoopFloor 2 bossBOSSA licorice wheel that bounces low and fast over two opposing conveyor belts, dripping black licorice straight down. Your yo-yo can pop the drips for 20 points each.
The Bubbling BeakerFloor 3 bossBOSSA flask that hovers in a figure-eight near the ceiling and pours out a small fizz blob every four seconds. It is too high for a quick tap, so hold throw to reach it, or let it sleep up there.
Frostbite SundaeFloor 4 bossBOSSA floaty, slow-falling sundae with a cherry on top. Every 5.5 seconds it calls down a line of four icicles. It breaks into two marshmallows and a jawbreaker.
HOW IT PLAYS
The yo-yo
Press throw and the yo-yo leaves your hand going up. Keep holding and it keeps climbing; let go and it comes back (it always travels at least a short way). The string stays tied to you, so the yo-yo moves sideways when you walk: you can throw, then sweep it under a blob. Only the yo-yo itself hits things, not the string. It turns back on its first hit going up, but on the way down it pops everything it touches.
Sleeper and Round Trip
If you keep holding when the yo-yo reaches the ceiling, it sleeps there, spinning, for up to 1.1 seconds while you walk it along. Blobs popped on the way back down score double and show ROUND TRIP. Three pops from a single throw earns the Round Trip achievement.
Combos and stars
Pops less than 1.8 seconds apart build a combo. Every third pop raises the multiplier, up to x8. Taking a hit resets it. Each campaign stage awards one star for clearing it, one for taking no hits, and one for finishing within 60% of the stage's base time. Leftover time pays 10 points a second, and a no-hit clear adds 500.
The clock
Every stage has a timer. When it runs out you have a Sugar Crash: you lose a life (shields do not help) and the clock refills with 30 seconds, so a stage can never stall forever.
Hazards
Conveyor belts push Dottie at 85 px/s. Sugar-glass platforms block the yo-yo and shatter after two knocks. Steam vents charge for about four seconds (watch the gauge), then blast every blob above them high into the air. The ice floor gives you momentum. Icicles shimmer on the ceiling for a second before they fall. They hurt you, but they also pop any Jellybump they hit.
Sugar Storm
Endless waves built from everything in the campaign. The floor theme changes every three waves, a boss turns up every fifth wave, and bosses get tougher on every lap of the four. Clearing a boss wave gives a life back. Sugar Storm has its own best score.
Controls
Keyboard: arrows or A/D to walk; Space, Up, W, Z or J to throw (hold for height); P or Esc to pause. Touch: put your thumb anywhere on the left half and slide it to walk (it works like an invisible analog stick), and hold anywhere on the right half to throw. Gamepad: stick or d-pad to walk, A to throw, Start to pause. The game pauses itself when the tab is hidden.
JELLYBUMPS
Four sizes each, with radii 36/26/17/10. Smaller blobs are worth more. Points shown are for the smallest size before the combo multiplier.
splits in 2
2 hits
fast
splits in 3
low gravityTRICK SWEETS
A popped blob drops a wrapped sweet 15% of the time (Easy 20%, Hard 11%; no Gumshields on Hard). Sweets land on the floor and last 10 seconds.
12 s
3 throws
10 s
4 s
1 hit
+15 s
rareYO-YO COLOURS
Cosmetic only. Bought and equipped from the quick shop on the game's page (equip key ss_yoyo). The game checks you own a yo-yo before it paints it. Cherry is the free default.
default
mint
gold
licorice
galaxy
rainbowGALLERY
THE NIGHT SHIFT
Base stage times on Normal. Easy gives x1.3 the time, Hard x0.85.
| Stage | Name | Starts with | Hazards | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | Morning Mix | 1 gumdrop (size 3) | none | 60 s |
| 1-2 | Double Batch | 2 gumdrops | none | 70 s |
| 1-3 | Big Gulp | 1 big gumdrop | 1 platform | 80 s |
| 1-4 | Vat Overflow | big + medium gumdrop | 2 platforms | 95 s |
| 1-5 | BOSS: Gobstopper Gran | boss | none | 120 s |
| 2-1 | Belt Start | taffy | 1 belt | 70 s |
| 2-2 | Hard Shell | jawbreaker + gumdrop | 2 belts | 80 s |
| 2-3 | Taffy Pull | big taffy | 2 platforms | 90 s |
| 2-4 | Rush Hour | big jawbreaker + taffy | platform, 2 belts | 105 s |
| 2-5 | BOSS: Licorice Loop | boss | 2 belts | 130 s |
| 3-1 | Bunsen Burner | 2 fizz | sugar glass | 80 s |
| 3-2 | Steam Test | big fizz | 1 vent | 85 s |
| 3-3 | Mixed Results | jawbreaker, fizz, taffy | 2 sugar glass | 100 s |
| 3-4 | Runaway Reaction | big fizz + big taffy | 2 vents, sugar glass | 115 s |
| 3-5 | BOSS: The Bubbling Beaker | boss | 2 vents | 140 s |
| 4-1 | Cold Open | big marshmallow | ice | 80 s |
| 4-2 | Flurries | 2 marshmallows + gumdrop | ice, icicles | 95 s |
| 4-3 | Permafrost | big jawbreaker + marshmallow | ice, 2 platforms | 105 s |
| 4-4 | Whiteout | big fizz, big taffy, marshmallow | ice, icicles, sugar glass | 125 s |
| 4-5 | BOSS: Frostbite Sundae | boss | ice, icicles | 150 s |
DIFFICULTY
| Easy | Normal | Hard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lives | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Blob speed | x0.86 | x1 | x1.14 |
| Stage clock | x1.3 | x1 | x0.85 |
| Boss HP | x0.75 | x1 | x1.3 |
| Sweet drop chance | 20% | 15% | 11%, no Gumshield |
TIX
Paid by the portal, never shown in the game.
| Reason | TIX |
|---|---|
| play (a run longer than 15 s) | 2 |
| floor_clear (any boss beaten) | 8 |
| storm_wave (every 5th Sugar Storm wave) | 5 |
| campaign_clear (Easy/Normal) | 40 |
| campaign_clear_hard | 80 |
| high_score (beat your best) | 12 |
VERSION HISTORY
- NEW GAME, replacing Bubble Trouble. Its original premise, art, name and slug are all new. It keeps the split-and-pop core, but you now play it with a yo-yo instead of a harpoon.
- Yo-yo weapon: hold to climb, it follows you as you walk, it hits going up and coming down (Round Trip x2 points), and it sleeps at the ceiling.
- 20-stage campaign over four floors with a boss on each, a stage map with three stars per stage, and the endless Sugar Storm mode.
- Five blob types (gumdrop, jawbreaker, fizz, taffy, marshmallow) and four hazards (conveyor belts, sugar glass, steam vents, ice and icicles).
- Seven trick sweets, combos up to x8, a stage clock that cannot softlock, and Easy, Normal and Hard.
- Systems: 14 achievements, a leaderboard, TIX rules, a cloud save of stars and unlocks, and yo-yo colours read from the quick shop (ss_yoyo).
- Touch (invisible slide and throw zones), keyboard and gamepad. Tested in desktop, phone portrait and landscape, and tablet viewports with Playwright. Not yet signed off on a real phone.