Reef Rush

About Reef Rush

Reef Rush is the eat-and-grow loop played straight. You start as a fry, small enough that almost everything in the water outranks you, and every fish you swallow moves the line between food and predator a little further in your favour. The tension sits in the middle of a run, when the safe meals have thinned out and the things that can still end you are getting harder to see coming.

What separates it from the usual version of this game is that growing isn't purely good. Spitting mass at a rival damages them but costs you size, big fish bleed points over time so nobody runs away with a match, and the sprint that saves you from an ambush is the same sprint you needed to close a chase. Alongside the endless Reef mode there are five-minute Arena matches, team play, and a tank of your own to fit out.

How to play Reef Rush

Your fish follows the cursor, so steering is the whole of the movement — there is nothing to press to swim. Anything visibly smaller than you can be eaten by touching it; anything visibly larger ends the run on contact. The size comparison is done on the fish, not the name, so a long thin fish and a short fat one at the same score look different and behave the same.

Space sprints. It drains a meter that refills slowly, which makes it the one genuinely scarce resource in a run: the same burst that closes a chase is the burst you need to escape an ambush. Click or press F to spit mass — it damages a rival but costs you size, so it is a trade rather than a free attack. Q or right-click drops a net for crossing open water.