TikTok has quietly added a secret emoji game that you can access in your DMs. The goal of the game is simple: use your finger to bounce as high as you can by hopping across alligators. Avoid the skeleton alligators, and be careful — broken alligators disappear after just one landing, so you need to quickly bounce to the one above.

If you guide your jump to a floating emoji, you’ll get a speed boost that helps you climb faster. The same happens when you land on an alligator with a propeller on it. If you fail to land on an alligator or land on a skeleton, it’s game over. The object of the game is to bounce higher than your opponent. As you play, you’ll see both your score and your opponent’s high score displayed in the top-right corner.

TikTok told TechCrunch on Tuesday that the game is available globally and can be accessed in both one-on-one DMs and in group chats.

Image Credits:TechCrunch/Screenshot

You can access the game by sending an emoji in any chat and then clicking on it to enter the game. The emoji you click on is the same one that will float across the screen to give you a boost. You can use any emoji you want, but you can only access the game by sending a single emoji at a time.

TikTok says it launched this Easter egg to make messaging more fun and to add a playful element of competition to DMs on the platform.

With this launch, TikTok is taking a page out of Instagram’s book. Instagram introduced its own hidden emoji DM game two years ago, and TikTok’s version follows a similar concept. Instagram’s version has players using their finger to move a paddle to keep an emoji bouncing, with the game ending once the emoji falls.

TikTok isn’t the only social media platform experimenting with DM games. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch in January that Threads is exploring games in chats. The company is internally prototyping a basketball game that appears to let users virtually shoot hoops by swiping their finger.

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Topics

Apps, Gaming, Social, TikTok

Aisha Malik

Consumer News Reporter

Aisha is a consumer news reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Aisha holds an honours bachelor’s degree from University of Toronto and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University.

You can contact or verify outreach from Aisha by emailing aisha@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at aisha_malik.01 on Signal.

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Go play this secret game in your TikTok DMs