How Finger Fire works

You pick a fire controller and use its gesture on the target. Each hit drains his Chill meter and shows on the ice; when the meter empties he melts into a puddle. Defences slow the wrong controllers, stars measure how fast you melted him, and coins buy upgrades and outfits.

Step 1

The melt

The Chill meter at the top is how much ice he has left. Hits drain it, and a combo of quick hits drains it faster. As it falls he cracks at the hit points, drips, glows, steams and shrinks, then sags from the top into a puddle. The first time you open the game, level 1 starts straight away.

There is no sign-up, account or setup before the first level.

Level 1 in the Snowy Arena: a fire fist hits the Frost Bully, a cartoon ice snowman in a striped beanie and scarf, with the comic word CRACK.

Step 2

Controllers and gestures

Finger Fire has eight fire controllers, and each one reads its own gesture. You start with Fire Punch and unlock the rest by clearing levels; coins never buy a controller. Every finger on the screen fires the selected controller on its own, up to five at once, and each finger deals the damage it would deal alone.

The eight controllers
Controller	Gesture	Label in the game	Unlocks on level
Fire Punch	Tap	TAP	1
Flamethrower	Hold; a fast release throws the flame as a fire glob	HOLD	3
Fireball Flick	Swipe	FLICK	5
Fire Slap	Fast sideways swipe	SWIPE	9
Firework	Tap; it launches from below	LAUNCH	11
Lava Ball	Pull back and release	PULL	25
Fire Tornado	Draw a loop	LOOP	27
Meteor	Hold to aim, lift to drop it from above; a lift too soon fizzles	DROP	33

Each controller has four upgrade steps, bought with coins; together they add at most 40% damage. A sixth finger on the screen is ignored.

Step 3

Defences and the controller that beats each

Some levels give him a defence, and boss levels 24, 32 and 40 have two in a row. Every defence except Refreeze has a right controller that clears it fastest. The level start sheet suggests one, and after six wrong-controller hits in a row a wordless hint chip points to a right one you have unlocked.

Which controller clears each defence fastest
Defence	Clears fastest with
Ice Helmet	Fire Punch or Fire Slap
Snow Armour	Flamethrower
Ice Shield	Firework or Fireball Flick
Dodger	Fireball Flick
Snowdrift	Lava Ball
Blizzard	Fire Tornado
Snow Globe	Meteor
Ice Umbrella	Firework or Fireball Flick
Refreeze	No single controller: keep the heat on

The Snow Globe gives way fast only to a Meteor dropping from above. The Ice Umbrella lets hits coming up from below get through, which is why the Firework and an upward Fireball Flick work there.

Tap the hint chip to switch to the controller it shows. It stays for about four seconds and comes back at most once every 20 seconds of fight.

Step 4

Coins, stars and the Freezer

Stars come from fight time: one for any melt, two and three for faster ones. The clear card shows your time and the time to beat for the next star. Every clear pays coins for upgrades and outfits, and each level you melt adds a Freezer tile, with milestones at 5, 10, 16, 24, 32 and 40 tiles.

The milestones pay 150, 300, an outfit, 600, 800 and 1,000 coins in that order. Outfits are just for looks, and only the Frost Bully wears them. Each day's first daily melt adds a tile to the Freezer's daily row.

Clear card for level 1 with a slow-motion replay of the melt, three stars, a time of 32 seconds, 160 coins and Share, Next and Freezer buttons.

Step 5

Break-offs, Free Play and Zen

Keep hitting an ice forearm or shin, or hold heat on it, and it cracks off at the elbow or knee as a chunk of ice that melts away and freezes back a few seconds later. Free Play gives endless Chill and records nothing. Its Zen toggle gives slow, quiet melting, then he rests as a puddle and freezes back.

In Zen there are no pop words, combo bonus or counter, Chill meter, screen shake or break-offs; sound is quieter and haptics are softer. Free Play adds the Yeti as a target once you clear level 25, and the Ice Robot once you clear level 33.

Inputs and limits

Stars assume one finger. Star times are set with one finger. Play with two or more fingers and three stars come much more easily; that's allowed, it just isn't the same race.
A wrong controller still finishes, slowly. Every defended level can be finished with any controller. In our balance tests a wrong one took about two to three times as long as the right one.
Refreeze has no right controller. On Refreeze levels his ice grows back if no hit lands for about one and a half seconds (a little less on levels 18, 23 and 31), so keep the heat on.
Zen is slow by design. In Zen a full melt takes roughly 60 to 90 seconds of steady play, and nothing is recorded: no coins, stars or Freezer tiles.
Break-offs are looks only. A cracked-off forearm or shin changes how he looks and wobbles, not how fast he melts or your stars. At most two parts are off at once, each freezes back about five seconds later, and Zen has none.
Five fingers. Up to five fingers fire at once; a sixth is ignored.
The Meteor needs a hold. Lift too soon and it fizzles. Each finger can have at most two meteors falling at once; an extra lift drops nothing.
Unlocks come from progress. Controllers and scenes open as you clear levels; coins buy upgrades and outfits, never controllers. Outfits are for the Frost Bully only.
Progress lives on your phone. Your progress is one file on your phone. There's no account or cloud save of ours; if Android backup is on, your progress can come back when you reinstall or move to a new phone.
Share clips. Share makes a short video on your phone. Nothing is sent until you pick an app; the clip file is deleted the next time the game starts. If a phone can't make the clip, the game says so.
Platform. Android 8.0 or later, Android phones, portrait, English only.
Daily target. The daily target changes with your phone's date. It is the Yeti or the Ice Robot on some days, but only once you have unlocked him; on those days there is no outfit. With all three unlocked, about half the days are Frost Bully days.