Support

Last updated 31 August 2026

Something not working, or not making sense? Write to support@unhero.com. A small team makes this, so expect a reply in a few days rather than a few minutes — but every message is read.

Reporting a bug? The most useful things to include are the version (it is at the bottom of the settings panel, behind the cog), your device and browser, which mode you were playing, and what you expected to happen instead. A screenshot or a screen recording is worth a page of description.

Playing

How do I drop a creature?

Press and drag anywhere to aim, and let go to drop. On a keyboard, ← and → aim, Space drops, R restarts, M turns the sound off and on, and Esc opens the settings panel — which also holds the pool still while it is up, so it doubles as a pause.

What ends a run?

The pile resting above the danger line for about a second and a half, continuously. Brushing it is fine; leaving it there is not. Merging anything under the line pulls the pile back down, which is why the way out of trouble is usually to keep playing rather than to wait.

What is the bomb?

Build a Wraith — the second-deepest creature — and you bank one. It is not a tool you can spend when you like: the only moment it can be used is the one where the run would otherwise have ended. The water all but stops and you get a single tap to pick any creature out of the pile. Take the one wedged low and holding everything up, and the column collapses back below the line.

What are the four modes?

• Tide — the game as designed. Take as long as you like over a drop.
• Riptide — two and a half seconds a creature, then the water takes it, aimed or not. The bar over the dropper is the clock.
• Undertow — the same clock at 1.3 seconds. Enough to reach, not enough to reconsider.
• Auto — the pool plays itself and you watch, at whatever pace you tap out on the chip beside the cog.

Nothing else changes between them: same gravity, same water, same danger clock. Each of the four keeps its own best score, and on iOS each has its own Game Center leaderboard, because the same number means something different under each of them.

The game is silent

Sound is one switch — M, or the row in the settings panel. If it is on and there is still nothing, check the ring/silent switch on an iPhone, and note that browsers only allow sound after you have pressed something: the Begin button is what starts the audio.

The purchase

What does The Full Tide include?

One payment, once, for the Riptide, Undertow and Auto modes and the Voltage, Coralline and Silverpoint palettes. No subscription. Tide — the whole game as designed — is free, and always was.

I want to try them first

You already can: Riptide, Undertow and Auto each give one free run, whole rather than cut short. The run is spent when it starts, so it is a run rather than a preview.

I bought it, and it is asking again

Open the settings panel and press Restore purchase. Restoring is free, needs the same Apple ID you bought it with, and needs a connection just for the moment it checks. If the unlock still does not come back, write to us with the Apple ID region and the rough date of purchase, and we will help you chase it.

I would like a refund

Refunds are Apple's to give, at reportaproblem.apple.com. We have no way to issue one. Do tell us what went wrong as well, though — a refund tells us nothing about what to fix.

Can I buy it in the browser?

No. The web version's locked rows point at the App Store, where the purchase lives. It does not carry across to a browser: they are separate installs with separate storage.

Scores and saved data

My best score has gone

Best scores are stored in the browser or the app you set them in, and nowhere else. A private window, clearing site data, switching browsers or moving device all lose them, and there is no copy for us to restore. On iOS, Game Center keeps the leaderboard entry regardless, which is the durable record.

Does Auto count for anything?

It keeps its own best score and has its own Game Center leaderboard, both separate from the three modes you play — a board of what the pool reaches on its own. It earns no achievements, because an achievement is a record of something you did.

Where can I see how much I have played?

Settings → Statistics. It shows your best score in each of the four modes side by side, and then the totals across every run: runs played, merges, time in the water, the deepest creature and the longest chain you have reached. Auto runs keep a best of their own but are not counted in the totals — nobody played them.

How do I erase everything the game remembers?

Settings → Reset saved data, which asks twice. It clears the best scores, your statistics, the settings and the free runs — that last part is deliberate: erase everything and the three taster runs come back. It does not touch your Game Center entries, which belong to your Apple account, and it does not undo the purchase, which does too.

Something's wrong

The screen is black, or the game will not start

Droptide needs WebGL2 and hardware acceleration. If the pool never appears: update the browser, check that hardware acceleration is on in its settings, and try another browser to narrow it down. Very old phones and some locked-down work machines cannot run it at all, and there is no 2D fallback — the liquid is the game.

It is stuttering

Close other heavy tabs, and check whether a battery saver is throttling the GPU. A deep pile is more expensive to draw than an empty pool, so a run that starts smooth and thickens up is normal to a point; anything worse than that, please report, with the device.

I think I am on an old build

The web version checks for a newer build in the background. When it finds one, an Update ready row appears in the settings panel, and it waits for you to press it — nothing reloads mid-run. Force-reloading the page also works. The version at the bottom of the panel is what you are on.

Can I install it?

Yes. On Android and desktop Chrome or Edge, the settings panel has an Install row. On iPhone and iPad, use Safari's Share button and Add to Home Screen; it launches full-screen under its own icon. The App Store version is the same game, plus Game Center and offline play.

Anything else

Feature requests, a score you cannot explain, a creature that behaved impossibly, or a note that the game is good — all welcome at support@unhero.com. See also Privacy for what is stored, and Terms for the rules of the thing.