This is a game of levels…you move to the next level once you’ve
successfully won a level by reaching a certain score and meeting other criteria
for the level such as removing all the jelly (and icons that look like whipped
cream) and knocking out candies and lowering a few ingredients, most notably
nuts and fruits, to the bottom of the screen…just typing this makes me wonder
what the heck made me play the game…just sounds way too weird.
And at first it’s all very harmless. You move from one level to the next
with relative ease. Until they get you hooked! That’s when it turns from Candy
Crush Saga to Candy Crush Crack…you can’t stop! The levels become more
difficult to surpass but you can’t stop…you’re in too deep! You keep getting
that message that the level has failed and you didn’t reach your goal. For a
perfectionist like me, they might as well just tattoo “loser” across my
forehead! You’ve already spent hours and days trying to get that happy dance of
jelly fish swimming across your screen alerting you to your “Sugar Crush”
(read: you get to advance to the next level)…you’ve got to have more. And
that’s when you realize you can purchase additional boosters that supposedly
help you advance. But they don’t…they just cost you money and increase your
frustration because now you’ve not only failed to pass the level…you’re out
$.99 or $1.99 or more (gotta love those lollipop hammers)! And that sounds
benign…but believe me when I tell you…it adds up during the hours you’re
spending with your phone in your hand, clicking on play again…over and over and
over. The first sign that it was getting bad was when I found myself doing the
happy dance and high-fiving myself when I got the icon that looks like a donut
with sprinkles…you can use it to knock out all of the candies of one color.
Very cool…and yet somewhat twisted that I get so much pleasure from seeing one
on the screen. This is a game that draws you in with things like rainbow
sprinkles, pink crusted doughnuts, jelly fishes, striped candies and wrapped
candies. And there’s licorice too…who can resist this confectionary buffet?
And just like with any other addiction, other things fall to the
wayside…the house goes uncleaned, meals are uncooked, your appearance will
suffer because after all…who has time to shower and dress when there’s the hope
of this next attempt being the one that gets you out of level 28…which by the
way is where I got stuck. Like a madwoman, I hold my phone and move candy
pieces from one side to the other and top to bottom…all in a vain attempt to
get that last jelly. And just when you think you’re there…you run out of moves
(oh yeah…you only have a certain number of moves to meet the goal). AND you
find that you’re also all out of retries (oh yeah, you only get a certain
number of tries) and you get the dreaded message that you can’t try again for
23 minutes! Are you kidding me? That’s like standing in line for tickets to a
concert, getting to the head of the line, and the moron behind the counter puts
the back-in-23-minutes sign up while she takes a smoke break!
So this morning I removed the app from my phone. Let’s face it…there
are like 395 levels on this darn thing…and I can’t get beyond level 28. That
tells me a lot of things…not the least of which is that there has to be a
better way to spend my time than on a game that frustrates me and keeps me from
doing other things that are actually more fun and productive (like watching The
Bachelorette). I knew I was hooked when I found myself last night Googling “how
to get past level 28 in Candy Crush Saga” (which, in a sad testimony to our
culture, produced about 397,000 results) and telling myself ‘ok, just one more try…I know this’ll
be the one that gets me to level 29.’ [Note: picture me wild-eyed and unkempt
with a death grip on my phone.] Really? I’m better than this…or at least I need
to believe I am.
Okay, off to my Candy Crush Saga support group---Candy Crush Saga Anonymous. Gotta get off the
crack!
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