Candy Crush Saga

Candy Crush Saga is as visually appealing and flashy as any other slick mobile game, yet as devoid of any fun as pressing any buttons. It takes the Bejeweled formula and waters it down, makes it an ordeal to get through, and then demands you pay money for it in order to pass some ridiculously challenging and contrived levels in which the best option through is to pay. This is the most notable of its kind, and arguably the worst. It plays decently, but it only has one single thing you can do, and holds that for long after you get bored with it.

Like everybody else, I played this game through Facebook, which means I've wasted several hours of my life on it. I'm not sure why looking back as it's a cheap knock off of bejewelled that's packed with micro transactions to halt any game play after a certain amount of time. Also, I really didn't appreciate the constant interactions it had with Facebook, specifically those annoying notifications it gives to other players to encourage them to play it.

I used to play this game quite a bit because my mom deliberately gifted me a shitty phone (presumably to protect me, ignoring that at the time I had appropriated an old family laptop, had a tablet bought for me, and Miiverse on my 3DS) so it got to the point where I'd just use her phone for the functions a 13-year-old kid would want (playing games, just generally not shitting itself). My mom had this game for the longest time, and I seriously can't recall any particularly fun memories I had with it. Sure, clearing screens and combining power-ups triggered my dopamine receptors, but I think that's just a small part of the gameplay experience, which mostly consists of getting stuck in a level seemingly designed to be sloggy and frustrating for weeks at a time, breezing through the next 7 levels or so, then getting stuck again, rinse and repeat. The less said about the microtransactions the better, I don't remember them being predatory as much as they were just standard "bad" mobile game microtransactions meant to speed up gameplay, but Blizzard does not deserve your money. Play if you don't know/have access to better stuff, like my 13-year-old self.

Fuck this game

One thing that Candy Crush did well over bejeweled is make its user interface and feedback much more satisfying. When you get a massive domino effect, its hard not feel joyful with all the sounds coming at you.

Unfortunatly, thats the best thing i can say about the game. This game is designed to be addictive and to suck as much money out of people do to its pay to win practices. Its ridiculous that you have to wait to give lives in order to try a level again, and some levels feel that they are way too reliant on luck. Its everything wrong with mobile gaming.