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🍬 Cut the Rope
Cut the Rope 2
Cut the Rope 2
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About Cut the Rope

Cut the Rope is the physics puzzle that helped define what touchscreen games could be. A piece of candy hangs from one or more ropes; a small green creature called Om Nom waits below with his mouth open; you slice ropes with a swipe of your finger and let gravity, momentum and a handful of level objects deliver the candy to him. Each level also holds three stars, and brushing the candy past them on its way down is where the real puzzle lives.

It was released by ZeptoLab, the studio founded by twin brothers Efim and Semyon Voinov, in October 2010, and it became one of the fastest-selling apps of its era — the franchise went on to pass a billion downloads by 2018. It arrived in the middle of the mobile physics-puzzle golden age, sharing shelves with Angry Birds and soon Where's My Water, and it won a BAFTA in 2011, back when a phone game winning one still surprised people.

The reason that whole genre exploded on touchscreens is worth naming: a swipe is a cut. On a keyboard or gamepad, severing a rope would need a cursor, a button and a confirmation; on glass, the gesture and the action are the same thing. Cut the Rope built an entire game on that single identity. You never move Om Nom and you never touch the candy directly — every level is solved by removing supports and trusting the simulation, which makes each solution feel discovered rather than executed.

The level design follows a grammar the series made famous: each new box of levels introduces one object, and each object is effectively a new verb. Bubbles wrap the candy and make it float upward, reversing gravity. Air cushions puff it sideways when tapped, adding a nudge you can time. Spiders crawl down ropes to steal the candy, adding a clock. Automatic rope hooks, movable anchors and later objects each change what a swipe can accomplish. Old objects keep appearing alongside new ones, so the vocabulary compounds rather than resets.

The three-star system is the game's replay economics. Almost any level can be finished with a lazy cut or two, but collecting all three stars usually demands a specific sequence — building a pendulum swing, popping a bubble at its apex, cutting two ropes in the same instant. Stars gate later boxes, so the game quietly teaches optimisation without ever using the word. The browser version preserves that structure, with mouse drags standing in for finger swipes.

Tips for Cut the Rope

  • Cut at the top of a swing. Releasing the candy at the apex of its arc converts stored pendulum momentum into distance, which is how most far-away stars are reached.
  • Before cutting anything, trace the candy's likely fall with your eyes. Order of cuts matters more than speed in almost every level.
  • Pop bubbles deliberately. A bubbled candy rises until you tap it, so the tap is a timing tool — let it climb past a star, then burst it at the right height.
  • Tap air cushions in rhythm with the candy's swing rather than repeatedly. One well-timed puff moves the candy further than four panicked ones.
  • When a spider starts crawling, count its pace. You often have more time than the tension suggests, and a rushed cut costs stars a calm one would have taken.
  • If a level allows two ropes to be cut with one swipe, that is usually a hint — simultaneous release is frequently the intended solution.

Did you know?

  • Cut the Rope launched on iOS on 4 October 2010 and the franchise had passed one billion downloads by 2018, making Om Nom one of mobile gaming's most recognisable mascots.
  • ZeptoLab was founded by twin brothers Efim and Semyon Voinov, and the game's success established the Moscow studio as a major mobile developer almost overnight.
  • The game won a BAFTA award in 2011, an early signal that mobile titles were being taken seriously alongside console releases.
  • Om Nom outgrew the game itself: the character went on to star in Om Nom Stories, an animated series with billions of cumulative views.
Comments
Quick FAQ
What is the actual goal of each Cut the Rope level?▼
Deliver the candy into Om Nom's mouth by cutting the ropes that hold it, using whatever else the level contains — bubbles, air cushions, moving anchors — to steer its fall. Each level also holds three stars, and touching the candy against them before Om Nom eats it is the optional deeper puzzle. Feeding him finishes the level; feeding him through all three stars is solving it.
Who made Cut the Rope and when did it come out?▼
ZeptoLab, a studio founded by twin brothers Efim and Semyon Voinov, released it on iOS on 4 October 2010. It became one of the fastest-selling apps of its time, won a BAFTA in 2011, and grew into a franchise that passed a billion downloads by 2018. The browser version you are playing carries that same original design onto machines that never touch an app store.
Why did one-cut physics puzzles take over phones around 2010?▼
Because the touchscreen collapsed the distance between gesture and action. A swipe is a cut, a drag is a slingshot, a scribble is a dug channel — Cut the Rope, Angry Birds and Where's My Water each built a game on one such identity. No cursor, no button mapping, nothing to learn before playing. Cut the Rope is arguably the purest of the three, since you only ever remove supports and let physics do the delivery.
What do the three stars change about how you play?▼
They convert a toy into a puzzle. Most levels can be completed with a careless cut, but the stars sit in places the candy only reaches through a specific sequence — a built-up swing, a bubble popped at exact height, two ropes cut at once. Since stars unlock later level boxes, the game makes optimisation the price of progress without ever framing it as a difficulty setting.
What do bubbles and air cushions actually do?▼
They are the game's two gravity modifiers. A bubble wraps the candy and carries it upward until you tap to pop it, which turns descent into ascent and makes the pop timing a tool. An air cushion fires a puff of air when tapped, nudging the candy sideways mid-flight. Between plain gravity, bubble lift and cushion pushes, the game can route candy through geometry that ropes alone could never reach.
Why is there a spider on some ropes?▼
The spider is the game's clock. It drops onto a rope and crawls toward the candy, and if it arrives first the candy is gone and the level restarts. Levels without spiders let you plan indefinitely; a spider converts the same puzzle into a timed one, forcing you to commit to a read of the physics rather than experiment safely. Cutting the rope it is climbing sends it falling away.
Does the order I cut the ropes in really matter?▼
It is usually the entire puzzle. Ropes under tension store the candy's position and momentum, so cutting them in different sequences produces completely different trajectories. A common pattern is using one rope as a pivot: cut everything else, let the candy build a pendulum swing, then release at the apex. Levels that look impossible almost always look that way because you are imagining the wrong cut order.
How does each new box of levels stay fresh?▼
Through a strict design grammar: one new object per box, and every object is a new verb. Bubbles add rising, cushions add pushing, spiders add urgency, moving anchors add repositioning. Crucially the old objects keep appearing, so the vocabulary compounds — late levels are sentences built from every verb the game has taught. That each-object-equals-a-mechanic discipline is a big part of why the series became a level design reference.
Is Cut the Rope more about timing or planning?▼
Planning first, timing second. Reading the level — which rope is the pivot, where the stars sit, what the bubble will lift the candy toward — is most of the work. But the execution layer is real: apex cuts, cushion puffs and bubble pops all reward precision within a window of a fraction of a second. The cleanest way to put it is that planning finds the solution and timing collects the third star.
How does the browser version compare to the original app?▼
The structure is the same — Om Nom, rope physics, three-star scoring, boxes that each introduce an object — with mouse drags replacing finger swipes. A drag is slightly less immediate than a swipe on glass, but cutting is forgiving about speed, so nothing in the design breaks. It runs without any download or account, which is exactly what makes a 2010 app-store landmark playable on a school Chromebook.