I have often called Candy Crush Saga unfair, and (so far...) nothing in Candy Crush Saga is as unfair as Chocolate. Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga is probably the # 1 reason I've cursed over the past month. When my wife hears me cursing up a storm, we exchange glances and she will ask me "Chocolate?" to which I will reply, "Yes, Chocolate." I never thought I would hate a game mechanic quite like I hate Candy Crush Saga's Chocolate. The game gets brutally hard before Chocolate is introduced, but this game mechanic really tipped the scales for me.
Understanding Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga
Bear with me for a bit, and I'll explain why Candy Crush Saga's Chocolate frustrates us so. I promise I'll give some tips and tricks in the next section.
The problem with Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga is that it's inherently unfair. Chocolate penalizes you when you're losing. TVTropes calls this "Unstable Equilibrium" - in Candy Crush Saga's case, Chocolate doesn't make the game easier when you're winning (practically nothing does...) but it most assuredly makes the game harder when you're doing poorly. Let's summarize the pains of Chocolate:
- Chocolate blocks your objectives. It's usually covering gel squares or lining an area you need to clear in order to bring ingredients down.
- Chocolate gets worse if you can't clear it. On top of the fact that it's blocking you, if you don't have matches near the Chocolate (which you need to clear in order to clear the objective), Chocolate will grow and block you even further.
- Chocolate breaks your matches. You can't move Candy Crush Saga's Chocolate in order to make a match, and in some cases it will eat a piece you need or a piece that needs to move in order to break it.
- Chocolate eats your special candies. Although it seems like sometimes it will avoid eating your special candies, it does seem to love the 5-in-a-row Color Bombs. I've had several of these sacrificed to Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga.
Penalizing you when you're losing is a terrible thing to do. Imagine a sport where every time a team scored a point, the other team lost a player. Would you watch such a sport? It would quickly get boring to watch, as whoever scored first then got an advantage and would be more likely to score again, which further increases that team's advantage.
The real kicker here is there is no other team. It's just you versus the computer. The computer has all the advantages already! Thus, the only point of Chocolate is to make you lose. Why would the game want you to lose? Because when you lose, you're more likely to spend money. Therein lies the core of the problem with
Tips and Tricks for Dealing With Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga
Okay, so now we get why we hate Chocolate. Now, how do we counter it?
Chocolate is your # 1 priority. Always, always, always match to break the Chocolate first. If you are rolling a level, roll so that you have matches enough to obliterate the Chocolate as best you can right from the start. Every move you make that doesn't match to break Chocolate is making that Candy Crush Saga level that much harder.
Chocolate always expands when you don't match next to it. The game never explains this, but you may have picked up on it. Chocolate only takes a new square when you make a match that doesn't break any Chocolate.
Breaking a candy up, down, left, or right of a Chocolate square breaks the Chocolate in that square. This means that striped candies can be extremely powerful against Chocolate in Candy Crush Saga - the more squares you clear, the more Chocolate breaks, and striped candies break a wide swath. Since Chocolate can only eat adjacent candies, the chances that it will expand in a row or column are pretty good. Plus, you can be far away from the Chocolate and still match to clear it.
Chocolate can't consume blank squares. If a square is blocked and candy can't fall into it for whatever reason, Chocolate can't take that square either.
Chances are pretty good that if you are still fighting Chocolate when 25-30% of your moves are used up in any given Candy Crush Saga level, Chocolate has already won. The uphill battle against it distracts you from the goal of the level itself, which is going to make things even more difficult as time progresses.
That's not to say you should just abort a Candy Crush Saga level if you've still got Chocolate halfway through, but you're going to have to focus on "Hail Mary" moves like Color Bombs and matching special candies together in order to offset the disadvantage.
Good luck against the Chocolate, and happy Crushing!