Candy Crush Solitaire

App Store Editors’ Notes

mostly great with some not so great

i loved this game until i got to the levels where they added bombs. the bombs make me want to delete the game. they take the fun away, add stress, and actually cover the cards so much you can’t tell what they are, and you can’t play cards even when it says there’s still time left - it’s like everything freezes. it’s so frustrating. the other complaint i have is not being able to play without joining a race. maybe i just have time to get my coins or play a mini game, not play a bunch of games to win a race. but you cannot X out of that option. you either hit the button to join or just close the app without doing anything. i prefer to do races when i have time to play multiple games. one more small thing i don’t like is the postcards - it takes too long to get through the animations when you’re in a race. i wish you could skip the postcard animations. other than those things, i think this game adds something to solitaire to keep it from being boring. i always have my sound off, but i discovered the music on this is actually soothing, so i will turn it on just for this. i like that you get rewards and other incentives to keep you coming back. it’s a delightful game other than the unplayable bomb levels. if they changed the way the bombs look and function, it would be ok. covering so much of the cards is not ok.

So Frustrating

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Honestly though at this point, it’s mostly hate. The gameplay itself is very satisfying & addicting, but you barely GET any gameplay. You get coins every 3 hours (which is a ridiculously long time, it should be every hour) and the coins you’re given are basically enough to play 3 games. If you’re on a hard level, or on some of the higher levels (I’m at level 742 right now) which are just naturally more difficult, you’ll most likely have 3 losing games in a row, and be forced to wait another 3 hours before you can play again. That scenario is in no way fun & is actually just frustrating and annoying. Basically this game is a cash grab because the only way you can play more than a handful of games every couple of hours is A: get lucky and have a win streak so you can keep playing (unlikely), or B: spend money on more coins and power ups to be able to play more/basically cheat/buy your way through the levels. I’m honestly getting so fed up with this pattern. Do you want people to play the game & enjoy it or just get frustrated and annoyed constantly wishing things would change? I’d like to see one of three things, one: lessen the amount of coins each level takes so we can play more levels in a row, two: lessen the amount of time you have to wait for the free coins, or three: give way more free coins every 3 hours. I’m so close to quitting this game if none of these changes are made.

Money grab

Loved the game to start but the more you progress, the more the Hard and Super Hard levels become more frequent and more impossible. If you’re patient (which I am not), then you can wait 4 hours for more coins. Bought the Lucky Shuffle and didn’t get the rewards, tech support was super responsive but I’m still not getting what I paid for days later so that was about a 20% credit. Not a big deal cuz it was only $4.99 but just frustrating. I’ve identified a pattern where if you don’t use Boosters on Hard and Super Hard levels, you don’t even get 1 card to play in 6 games - so they drain your bank to try to get you to pay (which I did a few times) and the second you do buy the Piggy Bank, you get another 6 levels with zero cards compatible to play. Don’t try the old switcheroo change the date on your phone cuz they’re on to that and lock you out. It’s a genuine wait to play unless you want to pay. Great game, but obviously made to make money. I’ve played/paid for every Candy Crush game they’ve come out with through the years and this one is the most blatant “hook and book the bank” in the way the cards are dealt in their favor. It’s Vegas Baby! Even if you pay, you can’t stay ahead.

Becoming disappointing

The coin system has become ridiculously unfair. Not only do you have to wait four hours for more coins, the farther you get in the game, you don’t win enough coins to sustain further levels unless you spend money- but even then, with how high they raise the coin costs for boosters let alone to play a new level, you run out so fast. They raise the coin cost to begin a new level so high after a few levels, as well as the boosters (at least triple as much). You might have enough for a couple games but you can’t even get the boosters anymore because they raise the coin amount much higher than what you get back after even winning a level. It was really fun when you start, but the more you go, you don’t get back near as much to level out spending the amount to play a level or get boosters. Spending money hardly helps because you run out of boosters and coins just as fast. Please get your coin system better because it’s not fair at all. Also, when you get those 5-10 minute booster specials, you don’t get to start immediately. It’ll waste time won to go through the postcard or more offers to spend money rather than let you play with the time awarded.

Unchecked AI Generated Levels and Theft

How do I know? Because there are literally levels that are created that gave me absolutely no chance of winning. Had a level where I started with just four cards. Multiple times none of the four cards I was given matched any of the top cards i needed to even start the match. It's great for the company because it spends my coins while they don't actually have to pay anyone to create the levels. Devs...when people pay money for those coins and you take the coins away on levels that give them no chance of winning, that's theft. Do better. Oh, btw, there's another instance of theft from this app. People pay money for power ups. If you lose a round, select a power up without going back to the main menu, and start the next attempt, the game freezes. When you come back, the game lists your power up as having been used. It's a glitch that is literally stealing people's money. You have to back out of the round, to the main menu, and select the power up from there in order to not get the glitch. Thieves. This app should be banned by the Apple Store until they fix both these issues.

Good but need some improvement

The biggest problem is that it takes too long to get lives. Most games it seems like you get a new life every 20 to 30 minutes. So you usually max out at five lives after 2 1/2 hours. This game only gives you the equivalent of three lives after four hours. That’s ridiculous. Also, they’ve started allowing family members to give you coins, which is nice, but it’s still a pretty pitiful amount and it keeps showing an alert like there’s something going on and you need to click on the family member messages, but there’s nothing there which is annoying. Also a few of their events are much too short to give most people a fair shot completing them even if you’re playing all the time. Again my biggest complaint is how difficult it is to get coins for lives. I would rather they just gave us five lives every 2 1/2 hours and not just a few coins.

Just like all dime a dozen mobile games, fun ruined by skeemy practices and manipulated RNG

The aesthetic is fantastic, the one thing the game really has going for it is ruined by King's way of pushing you towards their microtransactions. Those "very hard" levels? They should just be called "broken random number generator (RNG)" levels. There is strategy with how you hold cards and how connected cards will fall. All of that goes out the window - you will get either the same card multiple times in a row or by every other card. Developers break their own game system for their (or Xbox/Activision's) greed. I'd be willing to throw the game a couple bucks, but not anymore when they force my hand towards it. "Oh, you completed a full themed deck! Have 1/4 of the coin amount needed for one game for all your hard work!" These developers know they should scale the rewards by where you are in the game, but they won't because they want another billion dollars in revenue. At least add some perks through Game Pass, Phil.

Can only go so far without paying every single day. Not designed for play outside of pay.

This game is strictly meant for paying players only. However, don’t pay because as soon as what you buy runs out, you cannot continue without paying more. Highly disappointing for candy crush! I have always been able to play without having to pay every single day, but this game requires it. Bonus coin levels don’t even earn enough for 1 round of play. I will check in 3 times a day to get the free coins just so I can play for 1 day, but that doesn’t not work! It will take 75,000 coins in 1 round and still lose. I am not very far in either!! This is what the beginning of the game is like!?!? This is a cash grab and only a cash grab. This game is so disgusting with the money grubbing that I have deleted all candy crush games from my phone. Even the game I have been playing for 5 years, once you show me this kind of greediness I am done!