Level 254 of Candy Crush is Like Being in Indiana Jones’s Temple of Doom
I finally got to see the Fun-o-meter on Candy Crush. It popped up while I was playing level 254 online. There wasn’t a setting for “makes me feel as if I’m in the Goonies with Mama and her boys chasing me and the rocks are falling while we’re trying to get out of the cave.” If there had been that option on the fun-o-meter, that’s where I would have set it. Because level 254 of Candy Crush sucks. It sucks hard.
Make and explode a two-doughnut combo, a two-striped combo, and a two-wrapped combo. You are probably already seeing the problem here. It is highly unusual to ever get two doughnuts to fall next to one another. They are also immovable unlike other pieces. If you try to shift over a wrapped candy or a striped candy, for the most part (unless the pieces you are switching it with lines up three of the same colour or is an opposite combination) you can move them into a different space. But if you try to move a doughnut, it will explode all of the candies that are that colour. So you can’t move them. You can only hope to have another doughnut fall next to it.
The game board provides you with a single striped candy, doughnut, and wrapped candy encased behind a wall of whipped cream and reinforced with jelly.
I tried all sorts of things. I tried getting rid of all the whipped cream and then trying to make a doughnut. I tried making a doughnut and THEN getting rid of all the whipped cream. I tried making a wrapped combo first using the wrapped candy encased in whipped cream. I tried making the wrapped combo before I touched the whipped cream at all. I tried exploding the whipped cream away, I tried gently moving the whipped cream away piece by piece, I tried lovingly talking to the candies and begging them to align. I tried walking away from boards that felt as if they had a bad aura on the first move. I tried talking really loudly in front of the game, telling people in the room how I was likely going to walk away from Candy Crush if I didn’t win right away.
This level made me jumpy. I would finally make two doughnuts and they would be a candy or two apart. And then the whole board would explode because I accidentally dropped a candy that set off a wrapped candy. Every time the board would accidentally explode, my body would tense up. This happened several times each round, so that by the time I reached my fifth life of the evening, I had listened to a 25-minute cacophony of bursting candy. And while exploding candy usually is a sweet sound in Candy Crush, in this case, it was the sound of erasing hard work. Okay, so “hard work” is perhaps a bit generous. But still, it can take many moves to manipulate a wrapped candy to form. And then to lose it because a striped candy formed too close to it?
The whole thing sucked.
I finally won it while waiting for Josh to get our drinks at Starbucks. I decided that the hardest one for me to make was the doughnut. So I cleared the whipped cream and then focused on that center line of candies, trying to find a situation where there were two on one side or the other of the same colour, and then manipulated candies of the chosen colour into the other slots, finally moving down the fifth, middle candy to form a doughnut that I was able to move down the column until I exploded it with the other doughnut. I then lucked out and made two candies next to each other (I think I used an egg for one of these). The striped one was the easiest one, but I only had 10 moves left. I was going to lose it in a big way if I messed this up, so I took my time and within a move or two, had exploded the striped ones.
And then I almost wept as the game told me the level was complete.
Strangely enough, to calm my frayed nerves, I’ve had to set the game aside for a bit. I felt like I could do that because it was my choice vs. the game’s choice. So suck it, Candy Crush. You’re on notice.
15 comments
While reading this I noticed I was involuntarily shaking my head. So many competing thoughts: surprise that you were writing about CC again, wonder that you are seemingly consumed by this game, impressed at the level of detail with which you recall your strategy and moves, worry that I might really have to stage an intervention, curious about the total percentage of head space this game must consume in your life from the thinking about playing it, to the actual time playing, to the time spent ruminating about playing, to the time spent to draft, revise and publish posts about it, impressed at your commitment to it, worry about what you are missing in real life as a result of this obsession, wonder if the skill required to play this game well and successfully has honed your mental acuity.
And, now, look, you’ve sucked me into your web of time suck as I’ve spent precious time commenting. You’re good 😉
I like to make my obsession affect everyone else’s life too.
The time spent thinking about it is a good question, mostly because it has even seeped into my yoga practice. When I’m feeling down, I just make two doughnuts collide in my head and clear my mental board.
I will say this: Bobby Fischer was given accolades for playing chess games inside his head. He played mental chess with friends. Why am I not given the same congratulations for playing mental candy crush?
That level is the devil. I am just ahead of you and I have been wanting to put the game down for awhile, so you can pass me. That way I can take advantage of your advice. Unfortunately, I’m too addicted and keep on playing. I’m impressed with your recollection of each level and their strategy. while I am all consumed with the levels while im playing, once I beat them, they all blend into one big candy crush collective board.
That level is evil. Pure evil. I hated it. Now I’m stuck on 347. It is also pure evil.
I have been stuck on level 254 for some time now. It really ticks me off. Impressed by anyone that can pass it, as I am not one of those people.
First nuts and now whipped cream? You are blowing my mind with confectionaries I never considered. I just call those “grey blocks” because my glasses are apparently not as good as yours so I never saw the delicate swirl. I am trucking along about 100 boards behind you now.
This was a REALLY hard level. Now stuck at 305. Think I may die here.
Really sucks when the bombs are immune to the donuts power!
Wow I just get through it after I’m thinking maybe 10 tries and it was sheer LUCK with some strategy : ) mostly color bomb luck! Whew! I was terrified!
Just when I thought level 245 was the devil, here comes 254. I think it is time to take a break and live my life more productively!!
Why do you call them doughnuts? They are nothing like. I call them chocolate sprinkles. Don’t you hate when an explosion occurs and all your good work goes down the drain and that votive says “divine!”
I agree, these are not doughnuts – they are Munchkins aka chocolate sprinkles… daily Candy Crush grammer lesson..
They are not doughnuts on my screen I call them cookies… lol I found myself on this page looking for a way out of this level. I still have no hope of passing without sheer luck.
This is fun? I think not. I just get irritable and frustrated. I used to enjoy it, but not any longer. Enough.
I have cursed a hello of a lot on this level which is now giving me cause for concern. The neighbors must think I am having a domestic every time I’m almost there, then some random thing happens and all my hard work is blown to smithereens!