Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who is Om Nom? What is Cut the Rope? And who created this game?

The game you’re playing on this site is Cut the Rope. It was designed and created by ZeptoLab, originally just for mobile devices but now it’s also available for the web! Om Nom is the main character and the star of the show. He is the little green monster that appears in every level and the object of the game is to keep him happy by feeding him candy.

2. What is HTML5 and what is unique about this (compared to other web games)?

In practice, people use the term HTML5 to refer to the latest updates to the W3C standards for HTML, CSS and Javascript, the technologies that are used to make websites and web pages. The word “standards” is important. It means there is a shared agreement about how these should work among everyone who creates a web browser.

That’s what makes this game unique. Cut the Rope wouldn’t have been possible in older versions of HTML. In the past, game designers filled in the gaps with plugins (like Flash and Silverlight). Cut the Rope is part of a new generation of games that uses these new web standards to create an experience that could run in any browser that supports HTML5 without additional plugins!

Here are a couple examples of new HTML5 features that make a game like this possible:

The <canvas> element

This is just what it sounds like: canvas is a blank drawing surface. You can programatically draw anything you want onto a canvas: shapes, images, etc. It’s incredibly flexible and, more importantly, it’s really fast. Cut the Rope uses canvas to render the entire game scene. Arguably, it’s the most important change that made the game possible.

The <audio> and <video> elements

These elements (and their Javascript counterpart objects) make it possible to play audio and video files directly in the browser. Cut the Rope uses the <audio> element for sound effects and music and uses the <video> element to play the introduction video when you start the game.

3. I heard that there is a third level box but I don't see it. Why?

The first two boxes are available to anyone, no matter what browser or operating system that person is using. The third box, however, is only available when you pin the game to your taskbar and play it with Internet Explorer 9 or higher.

Most people who play the game, even if they’re using a different browser, should at least see the third box and instructions for how to access it, even if it’s not available to play. If you’re using an operating system that doesn’t support the newest version of Internet Explorer (like OSX or Windows XP) you’ll only see two boxes (and a “more coming” message).

4. What browsers and operating systems are supported?

Generally speaking, Cut the Rope should run in the latest version of any major browsers on any operating system. Here’s where we’ve tested it:

More specifically, we use modernizr to verify support for: canvas, audio, video, localstorage, fontface and CSS 3 transforms. We also decided to exclude some older versions of browsers that we found to be buggy or not robust enough to play the game even though they technically supported the required HTML5 features.

5. Can I run this on my mobile device or tablet?

The current version of Cut the Rope was designed primarily to be played on a laptop or desktop computer using a mouse, but (due to popular request) we have added some basic support for touch interaction. You can try it on your mobile device or tablet and there’s a good chance that it will work!

6. The mobile version of the game was designed for touch. How can it be played on a desktop or laptop with a mouse?

Each of the levels in the HTML5 version of Cut the Rope was designed or redesigned to be played using a mouse. We also adjusted some aspects of the game “physics” to be more conducive to the new form factor like slowing some object down while speeding others up. The fundamentals of the game are the same, but making these small adjustments made the game more fun and challenging.