dsa_shea

Sweet! I finally quit this game about a month ago. I reached a level past 10,000 and felt that I had spent enough time of my life on it. They really try to squeeze you to spend dollars and that became an aggravation.

maxfisher

Earlier in the year, I mentioned it in the Activision thread, but I am still absolutely blown away that Candy Crush makes over $1 billion/year. I played it quite a bit back when it was new, but when Marvel Puzzle Quest came out, I moved over to that as my matching game of choice. I mean, I'm guessing they've added quite a bit to Candy Crush to keep it growing, as it seemed like more of a flash-in-the-pan fad when I was playing. I'm almost curious enough to download it, but I finally deleted MPQ a couple months ago and am enjoying having my mobile gaming trimmed down to the daily Wordle, Spelling Bee and Sudoku on the NYT's site.

Jay G.

I quit playing shortly after the pandemic started, so over 2 years ago now, since I mainly played it on my commute, and I wasn't commuting anymore. It was a good game on the subway because I could play it one-handed, but the frustrations of the game weren't worth playing it at home.

joeblow69

Ok, I am officially uninstalling all 4 Candy Crush games. They pissed me off for the last time!

I had to do a re-install of iOS yesterday, and I lost all my bonuses (lollippop hammers and such). I had a TON of them. Reached out to support to see if they could restore and they said they don't keep the counts of those things on the servers, they are only stored locally. They actually said that's why they recommend people always use up their bonuses instead of hording them, so they don't lose them during a re-install. What a crock!

Anyone have recommendations for good match 3 games? I'm looking for:

1) no forced video ads, although...
2) I like having the option to watch a video for extra moves or a bonus
3) reasonable way to get bonuses, either by watching videos, spinning wheels, or just have them reactivate over time
4) not really looking for those kinds where you are always fighting monsters, and the color matches you make hit the monster for different amounts based on their weakness color (nothing like Puzzle Quest either). Prefer no story, just matches
5) Must have fast falling pieces. I can't stand slow games ... I need those chain reactions to happen FAST

I've started the Smurfs one (don't laugh) and it's actually not bad. My biggest beef with starting a new match 3 is they always start off so slow and boring, assuming we've never played one before. I wish there was a "skip 1000 levels" option so you can get right to the good stuff!

Jay G.

I haven't played a match 3 since I stopped playing the Candy Crush games, but I went and looked at the Google Play store to see what Match 3 games were highly rated, and the game Sweet Crunch, with 4.6 out of 5, seems very much like Candy Crush and could fit all your criteria.

Here's over an hour of gameplay:

joeblow69

It's funny, the other day I downloaded about 15 different match 3 games, and gave them all to about level 10 to see how they worked... Sweet Crunch was the one that I ended up playing the most. It's pretty cool, and already has some mechanics I haven't seen in other match 3 games.

Jay G.

Well, I've "beaten" Sweet Crunch. I've beaten 2231 levels, and there's no more levels, the level button says "Coming Soon." I also unlocked all 29 current Areas. There was a "Champions League" for people that beat all the levels, and I got 3rd place in that. Now I'm waiting for more levels/areas.

Early on, I paid $2.99 for the sale price on one of the Booster Packs, since it made the game ad-free (any purchase does). It was nice not having gameplay interrupted by any ads, but it also removed the ability to optionally watch ads for rewards. I had to rely on all the other ways to earn boosters/coins. Plus there's still the occasional pop-up to promote other Booster Packs.

There have been two major updates since I started playing. One changed the look quite a bit and also affected the boosters and bonuses. More recently, like the past week, they added "Teams" to join, and, I guess ask for more lives? That's the only thing I can figure out it's for. There is a chat function, so I guess if you know others playing the game, you could form your own team and talk about the game in it, but I joined a random team and I'm not inclined to chat with the other randos in the team, and it looks like they aren't inclined to chat either.

I may have to look for another Match 3 game to play while waiting for this one to release more levels.