I think the King company and X-Box/Microsoft folks have totally forgotten the objective of gaming, and frankly, I have had enough. King, of course, are the masterminds behind most of the Facebook games with the name “Saga” in them: Candy Crush Saga, Farm Heroes Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pepper Panic Saga, Papa Pear Saga, The Seat of My Pants Saga and so on (the last one was a joke, but you can tell I’m a bit punchy about these things). Some of the X-Box apps available on computers with Windows8 include TapTiles(R) (a game involving two-block matches), Solitaire and Mahjongg. I play them all. I’m tired of the frustration of losing them over and over again.
One would think that, after concentrating on one particular level of a game long enough, one could overcome its challenges, but one level of TapTiles(R) has thwarted me for months due to a seemingly impossible time constraint. One must clear three boards of tiles within four minutes to achieve three stars and unlock other levels and, with a bonus minute added to the clock for watching the same 30-second commercial to the point of madness, you have eight minutes to work with. I have managed to clear the first board in one minute, and after the second board, I normally have 4.5 minutes left to clear board three, which is the problem: it isn’t possible to clear that board in 30 seconds. My personal best is two minutes.
The bigger problem is, most likely, that a game, which should be fun and conquerable, is not.
Which leads us to the problem which may well be plaguing most “Saga-holics.” Those of us who play King games know that we and many of our friends will sometimes find ourselves stuck on a level of play. One can be stuck on a level for a long time. Friends send us lives and we manage to die consistently, sobbing and banging our mouses in adult tantrum-like despair. The “easy” way out is to buy ways out of trouble. Yes, King is offering us temptation and raking in bucks with a devilish grin. For a while I have made small investments for back-ups because I wasn’t at any level to earn anything. My Candy Crush cache is full of coconut wheels which, until I recently looked them up to find out what they were for, availed me nothing, but I could beat a level for $9.99.
None of these companies seem to have a complaint department, but I’m seriously considering a brief vacation from all gaming just to protest their devious and problematic flaws. When a game isn’t fun anymore, something is wrong, and it needs to be put right.
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