As I wrote in my first post in this community, I abandoned a game at level 18000+. There's no point in writing about the experience in this abandoned game, especially since @MannyFae had a comment in which she revealed her own experience with the first abandoned game. I completely found myself in that comment.
I thank @christinewupp for the advice; without her tips I would not have started a new game and I would not have continued to the end of the map. I also felt encouraged by the experience of other players who started a new game, such as @MannyFae and @Colleen Companion Welsh , or @Nobody1 experience, but I appreciate also the kindness of some community members @Carol-38 and @Alienscar . I also did not forget the help of @QueenB when my game was very difficult due to an error.
I started this game in the second half of January 2025. With so many changes in the game, I had set my goal to get as close to the end of the map as possible before the start of All Stars 2026, and to reach the end of the map by the end of July. I've seen from previous years that after All stars King make major changes in the game. I'm not going to talk about the recent changes—the ones related to activating the special candies—because they turn the game into something I don't like. That is most likely one of the reasons King wants to remove the switch hand. At this point, I don't know if I'll continue; it remains to be seen what changes King will ultimately implement.
I played an average of 45 levels a day until I reached levels 18000. After I reached level 18000, I played in groups 2x2 days from a week, making sure to make the most of the 2x24 hours of supercharger bombs, but also of candy royale. Near the end of the map, I lost my patience and spent more than 10k on boosters.
I took advantage of all possible events: top that (even though in the first months of 2025 the number of candies to collect had become increasingly large), friends challenge, music season, baker box (I always used the timed boosters for the chocolate box), pins sparks (extremely useful)/pins, deep dive dash, even the annoying winter season, petal peril season ... I also played on Windows in the first months, when 45 GB was given for an episode race (from @Colleen Companion Welsh I learned about the GB difference on Windows compared to Android).
Some thoughts on the 18000+ levels. I don't like skull levels. There are few moves, few candies on the board, the skulls are trapped between blockers, you don't allow yourself to make neutral moves in the opening of the game, so I find them downright annoying. It's even more annoying when you see fish avoiding the skulls.
Supercharger bombs help, but there is no comparison to the help in levels up to 18000. Many times, in legendary or nightmare levels, bombs are isolated, sometimes between blockers. Other times, you can't bring them next to each other because it would cause an uncontrolled explosion that would do very little damage to the blockers on the board. Being so few moves, so many blockers, many times, to open the board, I use a party popper and only then do I start thinking about a bit of a strategy ... but that doesn't mean I don't need at least one booster by the end of the level.
Regarding the chocolate box, sometimes it was friendly and let me complete it with old levels, other times... and I don't mean collecting candies from new levels, but tasks like 5 UFOs, 9-11 lollipops, 2 party poppers, and all of this not on the last task, but even on the second one. On weekends the chocolate box was friendlier, I was often able to fill it using old levels.
I noticed today that there have been some changes to the chocolate box. I received the 5-day, 25 GB box instead of the usual weekend one, and I had tasks to collect orange, green, and blue candies, including from older levels.
One more thing: my current level in the old game is 18,271 and 360 GB (I played a few more levels in the first few months of 2025); I replayed level 18271 in the new game a few days ago and got 37 moves, whereas in the old game I got 66 moves and lots of boosters and ads at the same level ...
