Candy Crush Saga Review

I hate how some levels are unwinnable. To me, that's a violation of the contract between the designer and the player. With the monetization, it just feels like they're trying to squeeze me.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I hate how some levels are unwinnable. To me, that's a violation of the contract between the designer and the player. With the monetization, it just feels like they're trying to squeeze me.

Wait, like actually unwinnable? Not save scum until you can unwinnable?
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I've yet to play one that is unwinnable, but perhaps I will reach that point. Just ones that require lucky starting configurations.
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I hate how some levels are unwinnable. To me, that's a violation of the contract between the designer and the player. With the monetization, it just feels like they're trying to squeeze me.
I agree. I've never played this game, but the fact that many of the puzzles don't have solutions does indeed seem like a failure of design. Needing a "lucky starting configuration" completely defeats the point. I can't solve a Rubick's cube, but I know that if I worked hard enough at it I could without needing to buy a different Rubick's cube.
 
What I mean is that some levels are just not winnable because of the distribution of candies. I agree the game is well-made, and adds some interesting dimensions to the match three genre (the comparison to Geometry Wars is good), but the luck factor bothers me.

The FreeCell game that came with Windows XP is a good example of a game that even if it was hard, was still winnable the vast majority of the time. When I know that >99% of the games are winnable, I feel better about losing. When I know that ~10% are, I feel like an idiot for wasting my time. This may be my own psychological quirk, not a fault of the game, unless most people feel like me.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
What I mean is that some levels are just not winnable because of the distribution of candies. I agree the game is well-made, and adds some interesting dimensions to the match three genre (the comparison to Geometry Wars is good), but the luck factor bothers me.

The FreeCell game that came with Windows XP is a good example of a game that even if it was hard, was still winnable the vast majority of the time. When I know that >99% of the games are winnable, I feel better about losing. When I know that ~10% are, I feel like an idiot for wasting my time. This may be my own psychological quirk, not a fault of the game, unless most people feel like me.

This is why I've never understood solitaire :p
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
This is why I've never understood solitaire :p

Most games of Solitaire aren't winnable, but there are options on some modern solitaire applications where you can have the game only give you winnable games.

A non-trivial number of Magic games are not winnable. Same goes for a large number of Blackjack hands. I see where you are coming from, but I think an honest evaluation of many games will yield you to similar conclusions.

The version of casino solitaire involves paying some amount for a deal of cards ($52), then getting some amount per card that you score ($5). This makes the game into an expected value maximization proposition.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Man I loved Sharknado. It was the first SyFy film I saw that I was actually satisfied after. All the others are such balls I can't stand them. They're not even amusing bad. Sharknado was so over the top, and some of the stuff in it was seriously awesome.

That bit when he chainsaws out of the fucking shark and somehow the girl is inside and alive WOW I really did not see that coming, that was ridiculous.
It does suck that that cool old guy gied so fast. He was the only character I actually ever liked in a SyFy film. Coincidence????

Anyway that's my own oppinion. I am really enthusiastic about Sharknado, but I will probably never watch it again.

How do you like Reflektor? I never liked their other stuff but I like this album.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, although there were lots of parts we predicted.

Every death
That if the reporter ever showed her face on camera she would die within a second
But yes, Nova being inside that shark I so did not see coming

Reflektor is growing on me. I actually liked it less than their other albums when I first heard it, but I've given it a listen through a half dozen times now and I'm coming around. It doesn't have any tracks that are as amazing (in my opinion) as top hits of previous albums (see: Suburbs, We Used to Wait) , but the album as a whole is pretty solid.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Man I loved Sharknado. It was the first SyFy film I saw that I was actually satisfied after. All the others are such balls I can't stand them. They're not even amusing bad. Sharknado was so over the top, and some of the stuff in it was seriously awesome.

That bit when he chainsaws out of the fucking shark and somehow the girl is inside and alive WOW I really did not see that coming, that was ridiculous.
It does suck that that cool old guy gied so fast. He was the only character I actually ever liked in a SyFy film. Coincidence????

Anyway that's my own oppinion. I am really enthusiastic about Sharknado, but I will probably never watch it again.

How do you like Reflektor? I never liked their other stuff but I like this album.

Also I like how all your comments were from the first sentence of the article :p
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Yeah I gotta admit, I'm not all that interested in Candy Crush Saga, so I only checked your article out briefly. It takes a lot for me to play a videogame; it's not really something I care to read about. (usually a criterion is multiplayer. I game for fun with friends. Last night I played magicka with my flatmates and we just dicked around the whole time)
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, it's cool, I don't expect most people here to care about Candy Crush, but thanks for taking a look nonetheless. :)
 
My biggest problem with Candy Crush is how often I see people screwed by the RNG. I remember games like Tetris Attack and Meteos where you could at least move everything around to form combos. And combos actually have a point in those games because they're multiplayer; you're not just making an arbitrarily large number to try to top other pointlessly substantial numbers attained by every faceless person before you. But I digress. Candy Crush and Bejeweled both use Facebook, so you can compete with friends. I just like the competitive Tetris variants compared to the single-player ones.

I will not give in to peer pressure and play it though. I play enough games where chance seems to hate you a little more than it should. I will, however, read reviews of "terrible things" if you make them.
 
I hate how some levels are unwinnable. To me, that's a violation of the contract between the designer and the player. With the monetization, it just feels like they're trying to squeeze me.

Yea after level 200 there are some truly evil ones...

....I guess they just want you to buy many boosts. I heard storeis of people actually spending 1000s of $$$ on that game. Bored housewives I presume :D
 
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