Candy Crush Saga Beginner Tips

In an odd trip of the finger across my phone screen the other day in Facebook, I accidentally *liked* a high school boyfriend's son's cub scout troop, just after his wife did. And I didn't discover it until two days later when I happened to notice it in my Activity Log. Uhh... awkward!


Wanna know how to develop an aversion to chocolate? Play Candy Crush. Good grief. Stupid chocolate. I am going to give you all a few tips I learned over the past several weeks since I started playing:

1) Earned boosters are not available to you on the mobile app. You click the booster in the mobile app and it says you can buy them. Go to Facebook to play and you will be able to access the free ones you earned. Save them for later levels though. Don't waste them on the easy ones.

2) Sending lives/extra moves/help to your friends? They aren't getting all of them. I don't know how Candy Crush communicates with Facebook, but it does a super-crappy job. I don't receive about 50% of the things I know people sent me. Yeesh. What is the point? It's either a social game or not. If not, just charge me $14.95 and give me all the stuff I need to play to the end and let me earn free stuff along the way.

3) We've developed a strange mode of game-playing in the world, where we pay a dollar for a game and then it bugs us to death to buy things the entire time we play. And we think that's ok. Gone are the days of paying for a game and then playing it until it's done without endless nagging. Sad day. Just sad. Even my Paint Shop Pro software bugs me to upgrade. Gah. (This isn't a Candy Crush Saga tip, but announcement of my awareness of the manipulation by the software industry of the gaming public, convincing them to accept their nickel and dime philosophy. Booooo.)

4) You can get 15 lives at a time by logging in on various devices. Start on your phone. Move to the tablet, then to your computer. None syncs lives with the others (they seem to sync everything else), so you can keep on playing. What. That's obsessive? Have you PLAYED Candy Crush?  Oh, there is one glitch. If your mobile app is on a board you conquered on your PC, you may have to exit and restart the game on your phone.

5) Remember, you can control who sees what on your Facebook. Tweak your groups and such to allow whomever you want (or don't want) to see your App activity. While you're there, please omit me from your app activity. :)

6) A tidbit of strategy (suggested--- I'm only at level 90)
   a) Most levels you just want to try to get as many special candies as possible and everything will work out great in the end. (Incidentally, that is also my life philosophy.) The sparkly chocolate ball (its official name- Color Bomb- totally lame) is the best, then the stripes, then the wrapped. Mix the chocolate ball with the stripes for a wipeout move that usually clears the board.
   b) The key, especially in the higher levels, is to look at the entire board after every single move. The WHOLE board. Every time. Don't miss a chocolate ball opportunity up top because you're busy trying to clear a corner. It's hard, but really look at all your moves. Then I typically go in the following order of possible moves: chocolate ball/stripe combo, striped/wrapped combo, five in a row (chocolate ball), four in a row (stripe), L-shape (wrapped). If I have more than one choice, I look for the one that clears the most jellies or whatever I'm trying to accomplish.
   c) Some levels have corners or sticky-outy single candies or some other funky junk you need to clear. Try to pay attention to those throughout the game, because they are the most difficult. If you can clear one, do it before making a special candy.
   d) Chocolate levels (bar chocolate, not to be confused with the fabulous chocolate ball) can mess with your head, sap your spirit and drain your very will to live, but don't be afraid of it. If you let it go a bit, it can be cleared with one swoop of a stripe before you know it. If you get obsessed with trying to keep it at bay every turn, you will miss opportunities to clear the board. (At the same time, if you see an opportunity to get rid of it in the first few moves, do it.) Remember the chocolate doesn't have to be cleared to win, just the jellies or whatever the challenge is for that board.
  e) Before you hurt your brain trying to figure how the direction of the stripes is determined, it is set by the direction you swiped to complete the four-in-a-row. Swipe left-right and the resulting stripes are horizontal. Swipe it up or down and the stripes are vertical.