Dare a friend: play three cuts, send the code, and they play the very same three to beat your score. No account needed. Rain check: miss one Daily and your streak waits for you, once a week. Your year in HALVES: from mid-December, a card of your year in cuts, ready to share. New treats for special days: a chocolate heart, hot cross buns and a mooncake. Gram targets now tell you what the whole thing weighs: "Cut off 10 g of 25 g."

SPECIAL DAYS. On New Year, Lunar New Year, Valentine's, Pi Day, St Patrick's, Easter, April Fools', Earth Day and Thanksgiving, HALVES greets you with a gift, paper decorations drift across the board, and the raccoon dresses for the day. TODAY'S SPECIAL. Three themed cuts, the same for everyone that day. Finish them to keep the day's hat: nine new hats to collect through the year. NEW OBJECT: THE PIE. One slice is already gone, and the crust is the heavy part. WINTER, FROM DECEMBER 14. A candy cane, a gingerbread man and a Christmas pudding, a snowy board and a Santa hat. The week of Christmas is Holiday Week: win Gold for reindeer antlers. The Daily stays exactly the same for everyone.

The biggest update yet. RUSH. Sixty seconds, no waiting: cut, score, next. Chain clean cuts into a combo and hit Fever at eight. Also Three Strikes, and a Daily Rush that is the same run for everyone. THE JOURNEY. 120 levels across six worlds, from the Fruit Stand to the raccoon's own den, with a boss every ten levels and a new board for each world you finish. THE SLICER. The blade only falls straight down. Slide and twist the object into place, then drop it. WEEKLY EVENTS. A new theme every Monday: Bakery Week, Fruit Fest, Heavy Metal, Sweet Tooth, Thirds Week and Garden Week. Win Gold for an outfit. RANKS, MISSIONS AND A WARDROBE. Every cut earns XP, from Dishwasher to Master Chef. Three missions a day pay tickets; spend them on hats for the raccoon. FIVE NEW OBJECTS. Banana, carrot, mushroom, burger and bell pepper. Not one carries its weight where it looks widest. PERFECT CUTS FEEL PERFECT. The world stops, the blade flashes and the stamp slams down. Every object comes apart its own way: seeds, juice, cheese strings, coins. Plus a simpler home screen, rules you cannot miss, knife try-outs, a daily reminder, and many fixes.

HIS TURN. The raccoon finally cuts, and you choose. He marks his line, you knock, you take a piece — but half the time the heavier piece is the one that looks smaller. Ten rounds, with its own leaderboard. TWO PLAYERS. Pass the phone: one cuts, the other chooses, then swap. The cutter knocks in private. THE KNIFE RACK. Ten knives to earn, each with its own stroke, sound and feel. They all cut exactly the same line. THE COURSE doubles to forty-eight cuts: thirds, exact weights, keeping things whole, and a final chapter with everything at once. HALLOWEEN. From October 20, a pumpkin and a candy apple join the Daily, and the raccoon dresses for it. Plus: seven objects now vary in ways that matter, knocks are limited to three for real, the knife is now visible as it cuts, and the Pantry button no longer shows a cockroach.

THE COURSE — twenty-four cuts in four chapters that teach the game in order, with up to three stars each. New players now start here. EVERY OBJECT ROLLS FRESH. Fifteen objects no longer have a fixed answer: the steak's bone, the peach's stone, the coins in the piggy bank all move. The rules stay the same, so you learn to read each one rather than memorise it. KNOCKING HEARS MORE. A knock now tells you how much weight is around your finger, not just what is directly under it. Three knocks are enough to find anything hidden. DAILY SPLIT IS SCORED OUT OF 500, so a careless cut finally costs what it should. Your past results have been converted. The Counter now gets properly hard for experienced players, three objects that were not pulling their weight have been fixed, and on-screen text is tidier.