![]() ![]() You get a stock of lives that slowly replenishes over time. There’s a discernible pattern to the letters that fall into the field in some rounds, and it can be very aggravating once you notice it. And it does, but the bad side effect of this mechanic is that it’s extremely clear when the game is setting you up to lose. In theory, the puzzle mechanic used this time around should give players a wider margin to show their skills instead of falling to luck of the draw with pieces. ![]() There are a couple of new blockers, but the feeling is very close to playing Candy Crush or Farm Heroes. Stone blocks need to be removed by making words using the letters adjacent to them. Tangled vines will obstruct blocks, requiring you to make a word on them to free them. It doesn’t take long at all for stages to essentially require a steady flow of special pieces to finish, so you should get used to it quickly.Īround twenty or so levels in, the usual King obstacles start to appear. The words have to be at least three letters long, and every letter more than that you can muster will produce a different special piece. The difference here is that instead of switching pieces to make a match, you’re creating words out of the letters on the board. Some of these are very familiar to King’s usual style, such as stages where you need to drop pieces of cheese from the top of the screen to the bottom, or ones that have you popping bubbles that cover the squares of the board. That means you’ll go stage by stage, trying to clear varying goals in a limited number of moves. In case you can’t piece it together from one or two screenshots, AlphaBetty Saga is basically Bookworm/ Boggle dressed up in Candy Crush‘s trappings. My gut tells me there’s a pattern here, and that same instinct tells me that King’s latest, AlphaBetty Saga (Free), might suffer the same fate. Their major successes, the two Candy Crush games, Farm Heroes Saga (Free), and Pet Rescue Saga (Free), continue to hang on the higher positions of the top grossing charts, but other efforts like Diamond Digger Saga (Free) and Paper Pear Saga (Free) have gone nowhere. But apart from Candy Crush Saga (Free)’s follow-up Candy Crush Soda Saga (Free), King’s had trouble making their games stick of late. No one can deny the success they’ve had at it, to be sure. ![]() Introduce new levels regularly, new gimmicks almost as often, do the whole thing up in a sharp package, and wait for the money to come in. Then dial up the difficulty gradually, spiking it now and then to tempt players towards buying power-ups. If it’s not already stage-based, change it so that it is. First, take a puzzle concept that has shown some success in the past, be it Bejeweled, Peggle ($0.99), Puzzle Bobble, or anything else. King’s got their formula down pat by now. ![]()
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