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Waiting for..... a lucky board
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christinewupp
Posts: 6,746 Level 5
in Discussions
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I have found a perfect level and moment for this experiment this morning just where I am in my echinacea/pink blancmange game: Level 7267 at the moment I have half an hour free lives from the "Beat the buffet" event.
This one is the perfect board to test this theory out on, since the strategy is obvious and the only way to get there is a lucky board, which will be very easy to spot: You will need to get a chance to break into the ice covered frosting by using the striped candy dispensers, especially the middle one, which would hit the wrapped candies above it. Without an opportunity to clear that top row underneath the dispensers early you cannot win this level.
This is how it looks (ignore the fish, that's a timed booster)
After the three moves a wrap falls. I think it takes this long so you can't win it too easily with double colour bomb combo (if on the top win streak)
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So I played this level until the game game me 255 extra moves. At one stage, after my half hour free time ran out and I lost my last life I got the fishing boat, which I usually do to give me one extra life, and lately this has included timed wrap/stripe and fishes with it as well.
These boosters did not help at all. The fishes went for the wrong candies, and even when the wrap/stripe made a combo it was never good enough or even left me close enough to beat this level had I played a UFO near the end!
The problem with this level is that unless it drops the candies you need you will always be stuck with only one choice of move, which is not helpful. The game wants me to play a striped paintbrush here, I think:
I tried to play a different move to hopefully get a colour bomb/stripe or colour bomb/wrap combo, but after one more move I was left with only the one move: pointlessly detonate the colour bomb.
Other boards with no choice of useful moves:
So on and on until I get this offer:
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Sadly, @drahcir61 I got no lucky board at all, even after this. Zilch, nothing. I used up all my lives from friends, which was another 15 attempts. Then I called it quits on this test and decided this one is what I call a "Godot level" (after the Samuel Becket play, if you know what I mean) . Others may call it an "impossible" or "pay to play" level. But I like "Godot level" better. (Spoiler here: in the play Godot doesn't ever turn up.)
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On I went to test out theory 2: Will playing all three starting boosters trigger a lucky board?
Answer: No, it did not on this level (I have seen this on other levels, but not this one)
On to test out theory 3: Will spending gold on a purchase trigger a lucky board?
I spent 69 gold to buy extra lives.
Answer: On my next attempt I got much closer, again with starting boosters. For the first time I got the opportunity to create a double colour bomb combo, in fact the first really useful combo the game allowed me to make at all!
I decided to finish the level on this occasion, but I still needed a UFO and a lollipop hammer. After playing the colour bomb combo I was left with this:
Here I played a UFO and got this:
Here I played a lollipop and got this:
So my final verdict:
Godot /impossible/pay-to-play levels do exist.
There is a fifth theory I cannot test out: Could it be the game knows if the player has gold in their account? I very much doubt this: Writing this into the algorithm would be too data hungry and it would be of no practical use to King to make a level harder for a player with gold than for one without. Besides, whenever I have scrolled back to test out levels other players were stuck on I get the impression we do all play the same level difficulty at any given time.
Of course King update the game several times per week now, so just because I didn't get a lucky board today does not mean you won't get a lucky board by the weekend!
