BENGALURU: The last week was a great one for gaming, personally. A less commonly known fact is that Candy Crush Jelly Saga has received the highest honour of mine by remaining on my mobile phone as the only game that has lasted the test of time by not being uninstalled — the only game that has sustained my interest and subsequently not disappeared during my regular phone memory cleaning rituals. Last week, the patience and dedication that I showed to that beautiful game paid off.
While I had so far been sufficiently impressed by the comforting nature of the sound effects (Jellylicious, come on, I know you heard that voice say it), and the soothing multi-colour tones in Candy Crush, the game went a step ahead by doing one of the most charitablethings that can be done by a publisher during these dark t i m e s. FREE. LIVES.FREE. LIVES. For a whole week! I’llpause here by skipping to the next paragraph while you silently applaud my entry into thelevel 500s.
Although April Fool’s Day was rather subdued in terms of jokes, there was a simulator game (the kind with inaccurate phys i c s , making li f e difficult) that made its silent release during the holy day — “Totally Reliable Delivery Service”. The game finally came out of beta in the Epic Games store and was free to play for the last week. The game gameplay is obviously terribly frustrating, with the controls being nothing short of a game of Twister with the PC keyboard being the coloured plastic mat. The plot is exactly as the title mentions, it involves picking up packages and delivering it all the way across the game’s map in record time.
The unintentional side effect of the game is empathising with the current situation of ensuring essential deliveries. TADS has a local co-op mode, rendered useless since it is unlikely the people you are currently in lockdown with would want to spend additional quality time with you. However, there is also an online mode for those willing to watch other gamers mess up a delivery as terribly as you do. But let’s all not forget the real winner this week, and reinstall a version of Candy Crush in our phones (because we’ve all played it at some point) as an ode to the game that gave us a sugar rush without actually ingesting some!