An Open Letter To Candy Crush Jelly Saga
I can't believe how long I've been stuck at level 43. Perhaps this open letter will get your attention and get me the justice that I deserve.
More like Soul Crush Saga, am I right?
Dear Candy Crush Jelly Saga,
When I was a kid, back in the 90s when playing video games meant riding a green dinosaur around while wearing a cape, and collecting all the coins were my #goals, I dreamed of one day being an adult who could continue to slay the pixels and show little candies who's boss. To my 8 year old self, this is what it meant to be cool.
Now, twenty years later, I have all those things, but boy did I not anticipate that all of those little candies would mock and fucking destroy me. "Oh sugar, those candies are hard." Don't you patronize me, rodent!
I left the original Candy Crush Saga, having gotten stuck on some level in the hundreds and getting tired of knocking Odus from their stupid moon. I still play Soda Saga from time to time, but I enjoy the thrill of spreading jelly more than I enjoy popping bottles & saving bears. I also desperately needed to get a fresh new start in a game that hadn't bested me so many times before. So I picked something close to my heart: A game with a similar interface and game play with fresh new characters and slightly different crunching sounds when candy wrappers break. I put a lot of time into smashing the Jelly Queen, getting up my hopes that this would be another game I could easily enjoy at least until the hundredth level.
Coming out of being burnt one too many times by not saving enough bears in just 30 turns, I felt it was fair that I started at the very beginning of a new game, despite how laughably easy the first several levels were. Then, after thinking this game would be a flop, I discovered I would be stuck at level 43 for an entire two weeks before I might finally move forward. An entire two weeks of ignoring my Twitter followers and failing to post the hottest new memes to Facebook because I'm so focused on spreading the jelly around. If you followed me on Twitter, which you don't, you would see that I ignore my followers most of the time anyway. But that's neither here nor there. Let's get back to the matter at hand, shall we?
So here I am, 28 years old, balancing my entire adult life while trying to beat this stupid level and pave a life for myself that doesn't involve crying on the toilet whenever I run out of a life but still have "business to take care of." Every single one of my friends are struggling. They're frantically sending me lives and asking for lives back, at all hours of the night. One of them didn't even play Candy Crush before but was tired of watching me struggle, and now he's stuck trying to find all the Pufflers. I'm sure he's going to go back to playing Pocket Mortys, a game that doubles in play time and doesn't take lives away when you're not doing so hot.
I haven't seen any of my friends since I started playing this game. Not because I'm lazy but because I have to be ready when I have another life available (and I'm watching the countdown even as I write this.) Five lives at once is a luxury to me, even though I sometimes will get enough sleep in a night to wake up to having five at once again. They're gone before I know it and I'm left having to beg my friends for lives. But I bet you don't sit around waiting for us to be ready to try to spread your jelly. I bet you don't even notice we're gone. Isn't it ironic? You parade around in your cute little API, taunting us to play but probably don't care that we use up our lives before we have time to finish pooping in the morning. That's gotta be a little ironic, right?
Let's talk about winning a level, though. It's great! The high you feel when the turns you haven't used up are converted to candies that explode all over the screen, increasing your score. There's no better feeling.
Do you think you'll just beat this level for me? I've gotten to the end with just three squares of jelly to spread so many times before. I can't stomach the thought of forking over $.99 for an extra 5 moves that may not even guarantee a win. What if, in those 5 moves, I am only able to create fish but I don't have the chance to spread them? I still need to spread them in order to spread the jelly! Why can't you just let me have this level so that I can move on and spend my time the way I truly want to: playing and beating more levels of this fucking game.
Look, I'll make you a deal. You don't have to beat that level for me. I'll just stop playing. I'll stop playing Soda Saga too. I'll forget there ever was a sleepy owl balancing upon an unforgiving moon in the original Candy Crush Saga, even though it's the only thing I can see when I close my eyes at night. Should I sell my phone? Just rid myself of the temptation all together? Deactivate my Facebook account, or simply unfriend every person who might tempt me by sending me a Candy Crush Saga request.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I know they are not worth your time--did you know that the average American spends more time thinking about Candy Crush Saga than they actually get to spend playing Candy Crush Saga? I still like to think about playing Candy Crush Saga anyway, which I think is why sharing these thoughts would be worth my time, even if you are off parading around in your little Candy Kingdom, not thinking about me.
Your Friend Who Will Continue Trying to Crush It,
Clare
Become a Community Contributor.
