By Addy Barber – Staff Reporter

A new video game called “I Want Watermelon’” has students all over Jonathan Law glued to their phones.

The game is simple yet captivating, and has led to students randomly shouting out “Watermelon!” or violently shaking their phones in class. The objective of the game is to combine fruits to create a bigger fruit that eventually leads to a watermelon.

“I Want Watermelon” isn’t just fruits dropping randomly. It is very strategic and one wrong move can cost players the game. When another move seems impossible, the “Shaker” pops up. This allows players to shake their phone and make the fruits roll around.

“I love the Shakers,” junior Alex Rodriguez said. “It makes my day.”

Although “Watermelon” is a one player game, players can add their friends on GameCenter to compare scores and start a leaderboard.

“When I play the ‘Watermelon’ game I always try and beat the best score out of my friends,” senior Brian Goglia said.

Goglia’s current high score is 6,026 points and he has a total of 28 watermelons. What is even more impressive than his record is how long it took him to get it.

“I’ve spent 12 hours and 20 minutes on the watermelon game in three days,” Goglia said.

Other students have been able to moderate their screen time on the game.

“I spend on average 45 minutes a day on the game,” junior Cameron Upchurch said. “It has affected my classes slightly because sometimes I would rather play than work.”

Jonathan Law teachers are starting to see noticeable differences in students’ attention spans while they are teaching.

“The ‘Watermelon Game’ has definitely been a distraction for some students in class,” English teacher Mr. Kulenych said. “Some students know when to turn it off and get their work done and others might need to start setting some time limits. Getting a high score or a watermelon is definitely exciting but unfortunately those points don’t get entered into PowerSchool.”

Many students downloaded “I Want Watermelon” because they saw people around them playing it.

“I saw everyone in my class playing the watermelon game so I had to see where the fun was at,” Goglia said.

The game has even reached some of the Jonathan Law Faculty as well.

“I heard about the ‘Watermelon Game when my Journalism class asked me how many ‘watermelons’ I had, and I had no idea what they were talking about,” Kulenych said. “I downloaded the game and I love it. And I got a watermelon. No big deal.”