What's the biggest change you've felt while playing Candy Crush Saga?

Mosquito_coil

I still remember that the first time I came into contact with Candy Crush Saga was in 2013. At that time, I played it on a Chinese flash website. The game was simply translated by the porter. That version only had 125 levels, and later it was added to 390 levels. I was only 8 years old at the time, and this game had a great impact on me, including the cute paper figures, novel gameplay, and crisp sound effects.

(China's Internet environment is very poor, and the problem of piracy is rampant. Although this version was later reported and removed from the shelves, it is still archived on some websites)

Candy Crush Saga is one of my two favorite games, and every aspect of it has a strong appeal to me. Almost every month I play this game for more than three weeks, although I often lose save files for some reason. And because of my age, I often couldn't pass a level for days at a time, but that was okay.

One day in 2017, I accidentally searched for the mobile version of this game, although it was the version represented by Tencent. So I chose to play on an Android tablet. To be honest, I never thought that this game could be updated to 2000 levels before this. But it doesn't make me feel far away, it just keeps me going.

But this version stopped updating as early as version 1.86 for some reason (perhaps a problem with the proxy protocol). In the end, there were only 2135 levels. At first, I didn't care. Until 2019, a friend introduced me to the most original version.

The new Candy Crush Saga for 2019 made me feel what the pinnacle of casual gaming is. Compared with the past version, this is a brand new game, all the candies have been redrawn and become more colorful and attractive. And the animation effects of the special candies have become more gorgeous, even the map has been redrawn, and the 3D characters make people feel immersive. And no more waiting for the candy to drop slowly.

After that, I almost gave up all other entertainment and immersed myself in it. Until one day, bad news came.

I remember that prior to that day's update, striped or wrapped jelly fish would not hit blockers or empty tiles, after which there was a bug that made its AI fall back to the oldest version. Although some subsequent fixes have been made, there is still a big problem that continues to this day: jelly fish with wraps or stripes can still hit the Licorice coil. And in any level, the jelly fish will not eat any blockers unless there is jelly on the bottom. (Jelly Fish from Bobber will still eat most Blockers normally).

But this was just the beginning of the nightmare, from April 2020 all map textures were removed and replaced with loops. At a later date, the UFO's AI was changed to not replace waffles with wrapped candies, not to place wrapped candies next to licorice shells or cake bombs (unless there are other Blockers next to them). In another update, the chocolate box was modified.

At the end of 2021, the animation of the striped candy was modified, and the bug that the animation and the grid did not overlap in landscape mode have not been fixed until now. At that time, I played to level 3100. Due to the lack of Moves, boosters, and gold, I had to temporarily quit after a few months. The same month I quit the game, the waffles were modified into toffee rolls.

Until recently, I started to get back into the game and am currently completing levels at a rate of about 150 levels per week, and now the game has a lot of props and gold bars, so it is not difficult to play this fast. But I can't seem to find that feeling in 2019.

I have to admit that all the updates mentioned above made me a little disappointed with this game. But what I don't understand the most is why the 2500-4000 level steps are so insufficient, and it takes so many props and extra gold bars to make up for it. According to my estimates, about half of the levels require at least three attempts to pass without boosters, and about 80-150 levels require more than 15 attempts. I don't quite understand why a casual game should be designed like this. And according to many friends who have played more than 5500 levels, the later levels are much simpler.

But I still like Candy Crush because its feel is unmatched by almost any other game of its kind.