How to get better at Candy Sweet Jim

Everyone starts Candy Sweet Jim the same way: eyes darting round the board, hunting for three of anything, tapping the first match they find. That works for about ten levels. Then the move counter starts to bite, and it stops working entirely.

The players who get past that point are not spotting matches faster. They are thinking about the board differently.

Match low, not first

Every match you make removes sweets, and everything above them drops down to fill the gap. A match at the top of the board changes almost nothing. The same match at the bottom shuffles the entire column above it, and often drops three or four new matches into place for free.

So when you have a choice between two equal matches, take the lower one. Every time. It is the single habit that separates a player who finishes levels with moves to spare from one who is always two short.

• Scan the bottom two rows before anywhere else
• Prefer a match that has a lot of board sitting on top of it
• A vertical match at the bottom clears more than a horizontal one, because the whole column resettles

The goal is not to clear the board

Read what the level actually asks for. Some want a number of one colour, some want you to break obstacles, some want you to bring something down to the bottom row. These are different games wearing the same skin.

If a level wants forty blue, matching a beautiful five-piece red chain is a wasted move, however good it felt. Look at the goal, find where on the board that goal lives, and work there. Ignore the rest until it gets in the way.

Boosters are for when you are losing

The instinct is to fire a power-up as soon as you make one, because it is sitting there and it looks fun. Hold it.

A row-clearing booster used at move thirty, when you need six more of something and have four moves left, wins the level. The same booster used at move three saves you maybe one move you did not need. Boosters are your emergency budget, not your opening move.

Two exceptions worth knowing:

• Combine two boosters if they end up next to each other. The combined effect is far bigger than the two used separately.
• If a booster is about to be buried under obstacles you cannot reach, spend it now.

Obstacles first, always

Locked tiles, crates, jelly, whatever the world has thrown at you: these do not clear themselves, and they usually sit in the awkward corners. Sweets, on the other hand, refill constantly.

Work the obstacles while you have moves to spare. If you leave them for the last five moves you will find they are in the one corner you cannot reach, and no amount of luck fixes that.

When to restart

Sometimes the board deals you a bad opening: no matches near the goal, obstacles stacked, everything clustered wrong. You do not have to play it out.

A restart costs you nothing but a few seconds. Playing eighteen moves of a level you were never going to finish costs you the same few seconds plus the annoyance. If you look at the opening board and cannot see two useful moves, take the restart.

The short version

• Match at the bottom of the board, not the first thing you see
• Read the goal, then play only the part of the board the goal lives on
• Save boosters for the last third of the level
• Clear obstacles early, while you can still reach them
• Restart a bad opening board instead of grinding through it

None of this makes a hard level easy. It does mean you arrive at the last five moves with something left to spend, and that is where levels are actually won.