The Vale Arcade
Acorn Catch
Catch the acorns, dodge the pinecones, fill the winter store. Free to play, no purchase necessary.
Autumn is dropping its harvest all over the orchard floor. A Vale squirrel stands ready with a woven basket: catch the falling acorns to fill the winter store, bank the golden ones for triple, and keep well clear of pinecones and anything rotten. Five stages stand between an empty store and a full one.
The winter store is full!
Every shelf is stacked with acorns, and the Vale will eat well until spring. Thanks for playing. The real treasures of the Vale are on the shelves.
Final score: 0
The store runs empty
Too many acorns thudded into the leaves this time. The squirrel shakes out the basket and looks up: the trees are still full, and another fall is coming.
Final score: 0
How to play
- Move: Left and Right arrow keys or A/D, slide the mouse over the orchard, or drag on touch screens (on phones, the on-screen buttons work too). The basket follows.
- Catch: plain acorns bank 1 in the store. Golden acorns bank 3. Rotten acorns spoil the store by 3 (never below zero), so let those fall.
- Dodge: catching a pinecone costs a life, and so does letting a good acorn hit the ground. You have three lives.
- Pause: P or Esc, or the Pause button.
- Begin: the Begin now button on the intro starts the game at once.
- Restart: the Restart button under the screen, or Enter on the title and end screens.
- Stage 1, First Fall (store 20): a gentle first drop to find your footing.
- Stage 2, Gusts (store 30): faster falls, and wind gusts shove everything sideways. Drifting leaves warn you which way a gust will blow before it hits.
- Stage 3, Night Harvest (store 40): a faster fall, more pinecones, and acorns dropping in pairs. A squirrel dashes across the floor now and then; if it reaches the basket it bumps it and stuns your slide for half a second.
- Stage 4, Ember Dusk (store 45): faster again under an amber sky, with wind gusts and paired drops together and a heavy pinecone fall. No squirrel this time, just the wind.
- Stage 5, The Moonrise Harvest (store 50): the fastest fall of all, and everything at once: wind, pairs, the dashing squirrel, and the most pinecones of any stage.
- Streaks: every 10 catches in a row without a miss or a bad catch triggers Golden Rain: five seconds when only golden acorns fall, worth double. Your streak shows in the top bar.
- Win: fill the store in all five stages. Clearing a stage pays a bonus and restores one lost life (up to three), and your score is every acorn banked plus those bonuses.
- A hidden treat: somewhere in Stage 2, exactly once, a single silver acorn falls. It shines differently from the rest. Catch it and a Vale coupon is yours.
Your best score saves on this device. Posting a finished score to the Vale Arcade leaderboard is possible too, and it is always your choice: nothing is posted unless you post it.
