Then I got the following texts on Monday:
Oh, alright, fine. I'll try the stupid game.
Ever played Bejeweled? It's basically Bejeweled. You match three candies of the same color and they disappear. You get power-up candies if you match four or five candies of the same color! So innovative!
It does have some different game modes. So far I've seen the standard timed mode, where you have to get a certain amount of points in a certain amount of time. The Jelly Remove mode which requires you to make candy matches in certain areas to...well...remove the jelly. And the Get Ingredient mode where the game gives you certain special pieces that you have to get to the bottom of the level. For each mode other than timed you have a set number of moves you can do. If you finish the goal before using up all your moves the game kind of starts playing itself in a bonus round, racking you up more points. After finishing a level you get a star rank based on how many points you got overall, ranging from one to three stars.
And here's where the game loses its charm.
If you fail a level, you lose a life. Yes, failing to match candies apparently kills you in this game. Once you run out of lives you can either wait 30 minutes for a new life or pay $.99 for a new life! Or, if you haven't already, you can connect your Facebook account for a one time increase in lives.
At first I was having fun with the game, getting three stars on each level in campaign mode like the perfectionist that I am. Then around level 23 I hit a wall and before I knew it I was spending more time waiting to play the game than actually playing it. Hell, I even gave up on trying to three-star levels at this point and I've actually been stuck on level 29 for two days now. The game doesn't seem to have a zen mode that I can see, so it's either keep replaying the same level and then waiting for new lives over and over or just stop playing all together.
If you liked Bejeweled, and especially if you wish it had been more challenging, I'd recommend Candy Crush Saga. If you weren't a big fan of Bejeweled probably stay away.
As for me, I'll more than likely be uninstalling this game and returning my mobile gaming time to Pocket Planes.
