How the Candy Crushed me: A Saga

by Jak Marshall

If you've been on Facebook recently, many users who should know better (including myself) have been sucked into playing variants what has become the viral social game, Candy Crush Saga which boasts a rather phenomenal 10 million plus count for monthly active users, which puts the game in the same bracket as FarmVille for general maddening ubiquity.

I personally think that the character design is just off-putting... 

I should put a disclaimer on this article because the game is highly addictive and something you feel dirty for coming back to time and time again. Here's how it pulls you in.

First of all it's a match-3 game of the Bejeweled ilk which means it's already dead set to be a time sink. But there's missions and social elements and lovely little graphics of delicious sweeties galore on top of all that.

The thing is that the difficulty curve rapidly steepens. If you've ever studied the mechanics of puzzle games you will know that the developers can make a level as hard or as easy as they bloody well choose through the clever tweaking of parameters buried in the mathsy code parts of the game.

That's why the genre is so varied and popular. Also check out Puzzle Quest...

Candy Crush has made most of its non-tutorial levels just hard enough that it's only barely possible to beat them without resorting to other options that make the game a lot easier.

First of which is the obligatory "pay to win" option where you can use real cash money to buy 'booster' power-ups which might not even bloody work without some degree of skilful use and (largely) luck on the part of the player. But no reader of mine is about to spend money on such a game (are you?) so we won't go into that. There is one other way to make the game easier though. But it involves Diplomacy!

You see, as well as requesting extra lives from friends of yours who may or may not be Candy Crush addicts you can also ask them to send you extra moves and other aids (at no cost to them) to help you get through the level you're currently stuck on. There are also certain parts of the game where you need to have at least three of your friends take the time out of their busy candy crushing days to send you 'boat tickets' to progress from episode to episode, meaning that you actually do need some friends to play this game and you have to publicly admit that you have a problem in order to keep playing. It's like having to show your AA badge to get into a bar, and it also increased the visibility of the game.

Despite having a built in lives system to stop you playing for hours... you still find yourself playing for quite some time.

But it's all very well asking your friends for help except when you realise that they probably want your help in return. This would be fine if the various game's overworld map wasn't laid out like a giant race to the finish type board game with all your friends on it. Friends that you would quite like to overtake on this board and (using a built in feature of the game that allows you to) publicly boast that you are ahead of them.

It's a symbiotic relationship and it is often that the case that you can't make swift progress without assistance. I'm on a meager level 38 and it's because I am too stubborn to ask for help but my resolve is wavering as of late. Especially since people who I consider myself ultimately better than in every single way are outperforming me and this can only be because of 'politics' .

Because I'm really good at video games.

But ultimately, Candy Crush is to the social puzzle games genre as Dark Souls is to the Western RPG genre. You can make no progress for the longest time because of a steep difficulty curve, feel a great sense of accomplishment when you do make progress and there is a multiplayer element to the game which one is reluctant to use at first, but is ultimately the best way to make swifter progress, even if it isn't as satisfying. I just can't wait for Candy Crush: Prepare to Die Edition. Peace out. 

Play My Puzzle Game: Linesweeper

Yes you read right... I kinda invented something. "Linesweeper" is not too unlike popular Japanese puzzles except I guess it's not Japanese since I made it (so we I guess we should call it one of those "British Puzzles?") but this is all fluff. I should tell you all how you can play it online and where you can do so.

Linesweeper is hosted on the website of a great guy called Otto Janko, (I've mentioned his excellent site before) and he has kindly made a Javascript applet for what would have otherwise been solely a pen and paper based grid puzzle so you can actually just do it all in your browser right now!

There is a good explanation on the main page on how to solve... but it's in German so unless you want to use a translator to figure out the rules I'll just explain it here.

LINESWEEPER RULES!


1. The object is to create a path through the grid which forms a single closed loop. You can only ever move up, down, left or right (not diagonally).


2. The loop can't cross itself or have a fork in it, just one uninterrupted loop.


3. The numbered cells can't be passed through and tell you exactly how many of the 8 surrounding cells should contain some part of the solution path. (e.g. "0" means the 8 surrounding cells can't be passed through at all).


NB: There is only ever one solution and no guesswork is required.


There are 20 puzzles on the site at the moment and I've already written another 5 personally and perhaps other puzzle authors out there will create their own problems in the future? Watch this space!

Your Alternative Super Mario Fix

Hello readers! I have a big bag of Mario awesomeness to dispense today so let's get right down to it!

First up is the so far excellent Super Mario 63, which is so far quite frankly an incredible flash game in which the traditionally "3D Mario" games get a 2D makeover and the result is pretty cool from what I've played until now. The game starts off with its own take on the 'Bowser kidnaps Peach' and although they play this pretty much straight there are some Mario gags that fanboys like me will just eat up. 

But honestly, they've whacked everything in here! The non-linear castle exploration and paintings that act as portals to worlds with many missions is from Mario 64, as is the health bar and red coins but we have Silver Star missions (DS Mario 64), FLUDD and Shine Sprites (Sunshine), Star Coins (New Mario Bros), and even the Star Slings from Galaxy! The Mario sprite hails from the Mario and Luigi RPGs on the DS and There's a whole host of backgrounds and sprites from Yoshi's Island --where I have yet to see the little green dude but I have not had a full playthrough yet. This is all before I've even collected my first Shine Sprite so I'm uber excited to play more of this game. There are bosses to fight with set piece puzzle weaknesses and although the levels are all in 2D, there is a great deal of non-linearity here and one can even zoom in and out of levels to see more of what is happening.

Mario can dive, jump, double and triple jump, use FLUDD nozzles and do spin attacks and ground pounds from the start and I imagine many other abilities become available further in the game. My one complaint is that Mario's movement and jumps can feel a bit clumsy sometimes but I was able to adjust rather quickly and it doesn't ruin the gameplay for me. SM63 is an excellent and exciting game. Please have a go. 

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If that's all a bit too modern for you, we now go all retro and visit the UPDATED version of Super Mario Crossover. I say this because the original version of this game came out a while ago and there have since been some improvements. Anyway, for those who have never played this game, Super Mario Crossover is basically the original Super Mario Bros. NES classic with the option of playing through the game with (at time of writing) 6 other NES characters including Megaman and Samus Aran in all their pixelley glory.

The characters are all roughly controllable exactly as they were in their own NES games and attack accordingly. Megaman has his buster, Samus has her Power Beam and Link has his sword. However since they are guests in Mario Land, they play by Mario's House Rules in that if you take a hit from a Goomba or fall down a bottomless pit, you die. Mushrooms and Flowers each have their own unique effects on the characters and as well as offering the usual one hit shield before being vulnerable again, characters usually get a weapon upgrade. For example, Megaman can charge his weapon and acquires his headgear in Mushroom Mode. Purely a nostalgia love festival this but it's very well made.    

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I also intend to delve into the dark scary world of Super Mario World rom hacks and recommend some particular titles soon so watch this space.