A strategy for playing that works well but requires watching lots of ads

Hi. I have had a lot of success playing this game, and thought I would share my strategy. But I should first point out that this strategy does require watching lots of ads, which is somewhat controversial. It can waste a lot of time and makes king a lot of money, which you are never compensated for except by the enjoyment of playing and doing well. I figure King probably averages about 3 cents income per ad I watch, which likely means King has made about 1000 USD on my ad watches. But honestly I am usually multitasking, doing other things while watching the ads, so I don't mind it. I feel like filling chocolate boxes is actually more boring than watching the ads, so I personally don't mind it. If that's not for you, I understand. But if you are willing to watch ads, this strategy does seem to work pretty well, so I thought I'd share it.

Here is my current player card so you can see how I'm doing:

It says I've been playing since 2024, but actually I started on December 28, 2023. So I have been playing for just over one year and am already at level 16776. And I currently have over 30,700 gold bars, which I have earned in the game by using boosters (earned from watching ads) to complete episode races and fill gold chocolate boxes. I won my final in the Winter Cup with 1.5 million points, by spending more than usual gold bars; I had 32,000 gold bars before I started the final.

The strategy is really quite simple. As several of the regulars here have pointed out, the makers of the game have recently moved to an approach of no longer favoring the older puzzle-oriented aspect of the game, but instead wanting you to win by spending boosters to get through every level. It's kind of sad - I did enjoy the old game; I never had the game on my device, but my wife played it, and I would often go to her old levels with less than 3 stars and try to get them up to 3 stars, just for fun (didn't want to mess with her game by doing new levels for her). So since King wants us to play with boosters, and they let us earn boosters by watching ads, I decided to embrace the approach, and use lots of boosters to get through the new levels quickly, like King seems to want us to do.

My basic approach is this:

• Never start an episode race without having at least 10 free switches and 10 lollipop hammers saved and ready to use. Get them by using the Sweet Cinema to watch ads until you have them. Lately as it's getting a little harder on the higher levels I'm actually going for 15 of each, just to be safe.
• Make sure to take advantage of any side games possible when starting an episode race, so as to earn as much as possible with each one.
• Never start an episode race unless you're sure you have enough time to finish it within a few hours. While the episode races do give you some time to finish them and win the gold bars, that time is definitely less than 24 hours, and I hate losing an episode race. I had a streak of 500+ episode race wins about 6 months ago and lost one after just 8.5 hours, which was heartbreaking. So it's best to always win within 2 to 3 hours.
• For chocolate boxes, always go with colored candies or striped or wrapped candies or color bombs for the first 3 orders, and new levels for the last order. When I complete a chocolate box, I always pause my episode race to go back to old levels to complete the first 3 orders. Then I resume the race for the 4th order. That maximizes gold from the chocolate boxes.
• Lately the superchargers complicates filling the chocolate boxes. Since a supercharger is lost even if you lose an old level, you can't afford to play old levels you don't know well for fun. So that makes filling chocolate boxes a chore - you have to go back to old levels you know you can always complete successfully so you don't lose your supercharger.
• As much as possible, start with a color bomb active, add striped and wrapped if you can afford it, and add the third booster that is offered if the level is hard or above. I will always buy 20 of the third booster if I am out and on a hard level. But there are exceptions to this. If you see the level has sugar coat orders, you must fear the Oops. In that case, back off of the boosters. Also if the level has chocolate orders, again back off the boosters.
• When you enter the new level, check to make sure it's not a puzzle level that can get you in trouble by just bashing away. If not, which is usually the case, try to always start by matching 2 color bombs. Once you get a win streak going, you should always have at least 2 color bombs on the board, and you can often have 3 or more if you can watch an ad before starting. It's often worth it to use several boosters to accomplish this, since it is so valuable for completing a level in the given number of moves.
• When you are running out of moves, don't hesitate to use boosters if you need them. I actually prefer to never chance getting extra moves after not completing a level in the given number of moves, since I find that often leads to the game crashing, which breaks your win streak. But of course you must try to be as efficient as possible to minimize use of boosters to win in the requires number of moves. I rarely ever need party boosters, I use 1 or 2 UFOs per episode race, and maybe 2 or 3 striped brushes per episode race. So that's where I spend most of my gold bars.
• Be as efficient as possible to clear each board. LOL.

And that's pretty much it. I will add more details here as I think of them, but that's a general overview of my approach. I hope it will be helpful to someone, and open discussion of how to improve on this, and possibly encourage others to share their strategies.