How to play Bugsquash

Bugsquash is a free, touch-first garden game with one rule at its heart: squash the pests, spare the bees. Every run lasts 60 seconds and the only thing that matters is your score.

What is Bugsquash?

Bugsquash is a sunny, cartoon arcade game that plays in your browser — no download, no account, no sign-up. Pests drift across a garden and you tap them to squash them. The catch is the bee: it looks a lot like the wasp, but you must let it fly free. It is fast, it is kid-safe (a squish and a puff, never anything gory), and it gets harder the longer a run goes on.

How to play

Tap the big Play button and the garden blooms. For the next 60 seconds, insects cross the screen — tap a pest to splat it and earn points. Flies are the easy start, mosquitoes are a little quicker, and wasps are fast and worth more. Each pest you squash without hitting a bee builds a combo that multiplies your score. Keep a streak going and every eighth squash in a row lands a Streak bonus — a burst of points that grows the longer your run stays clean, so a disciplined streak is worth far more than the multiplier alone. Tap a bee and the streak resets with the combo.

The bee is the trap. It is round, fuzzy and amber, with a gentle buzz — while the wasp is sleek, bright and darting. Tap the wasp, but never the bee: a bee you squash costs you points and resets your combo. A bee that flies off the screen safely pollinates a flower and fills your garden meter. Fill the whole meter and you get a permanent score multiplier.

Every so often a hornet crashes the party under a big “HORNET!” banner. It takes three taps to down and is worth the most points of anything in the garden — and if it escapes, it costs you nothing. When the timer hits zero, your run is over and your score card appears.

Tips

• Look at the silhouette first: round and fuzzy is a bee, slim and angular is a wasp. When the garden gets busy, shape is the fastest tell.
• Listen — the wasp has a sharper, higher buzz than the bee. Sound is a backup, not a requirement (the game plays perfectly muted).
• Protect your combo. The multiplier is your whole score, and one squashed bee sends it back to ×1.
• Hunt the streak bonuses. Every eighth squash in an unbroken run pays a growing point burst, so nursing one long, careful streak beats a flurry of sloppy taps.
• Chase the hornet. It is worth more than a dozen flies, and three taps is all it takes.
• Let bees cross the whole screen. Every one that leaves safely gets you closer to a permanent multiplier.
• Early on, the pests are slow and easy — build your combo before the wasps get sneaky.

FAQ

Is Bugsquash free? Yes — it is free to play in your browser, supported by ads. There are no in-app purchases, no accounts and no premium tier.

Do I need to sign up or download anything? No. The whole game runs in your browser. Your best score is saved on your own device only.

What happens if I tap a bee? You lose points and your combo resets to ×1. You never lose a life — there is no game over, the run always lasts the full 60 seconds.

What does the garden meter do? Each bee you spare fills one flower. Fill all five and you earn a score multiplier that lasts the rest of the run, then the meter resets.

How do I share my score? When a run ends, tap Share. On phones it opens the share sheet; on desktop it copies your result and a link to your clipboard.