I have mentioned many times in this blogcast about how I first joined Facebook. I was only trying to get publicity for my store by creating a page for it, only to be forced to form a page for myself first. The rules had changed after I had read an older book, I guess. I didn't even try to get friends for a few months, after a disappointing birthday message from Facebook. One of those friends invited me to join a game he played. Since I wanted to be nice, I tried it out, even though it wasn't the type I usually liked, sports. Specifically, Golf Clash. (I would later realize that he got an in-game bonus whenever he invited someone to join the game, and they accepted.) After that, I finally started trying out various games. Of course, the first one I chose on my own was Bejeweled. Their version wasn't exactly the same as the one I was familiar with, but I played for a few weeks before I decided to drop it. I would try out a bunch of other games, abandoning them for one reason or another. I quickly got rid of this weird diner-based matching game, once I found out it was from China. I would go on to find other games, most notably the "Candy Crush" games. I even looked into the game Chats that Facebook had with some of the games. That feature slowly faded. At my height, I had around ten games that a cycled through. Then the shoes began to drop.
I hit a wall on one matching game. Try as I might, I couldn't get through this one level. I was all but out of special resources, and I saw no way out to push through. So, I deleted the game. I deleted another game after I accidentally reset it back to the beginning. There was no way I was going to start over, so the block breaking game was history. A third game got deleted after it began to freeze up. While I was getting the daily check-in bonuses, I couldn't actually play the word-building game. I was gone too. One game that I really, really loved was SongPop 2 (don't ask about the original). I was taken down when Flash support was ended. I was in the middle of getting ready to say goodbye, when the game was taken down earlier than I expected. At least I managed to get that game back later. (See a future post.) Even Golf Clash was affected for a few weeks by a dispute with Facebook. I was froze out of the game while things were sorted out. The game came back, but left the platform shortly afterwards. (I managed a way to play this game too. Again, later post.)
With all of the upgrades that Facebook has gone through, many of the games I left behind aren't even mentioned in my History any more. Only the four games I still play daily are left. I've mentioned the three "Candy Crush" games before, and I will feature them in a separate post soon. The only remaining game left is Cookie Jam. I don't remember how I got attached to this matching game that is quite similar to "Candy Crush." It has similar themes and rules, but the game has always had features unique to themself. In fact, "Candy Crush" has been implementing some of those features, or something close to them. In some ways, Cookie Jam is a better game with their newest features. I find myself playing for longer periods than I do with any "Candy Crush" game. I just seem to rack up longer winning streaks in it. In fact, I sometimes feel that Cookie Jam lets me win. That's how easy it gets at times.
Facebook isn't the only social media site that has games now. (The games are a big reason why I prefer the site over the mobile app.) LinkedIn added games over a year ago, but I don't really play them. They just feel like digital versions of traditional pencil-and-paper games. In fact, I actually do many similar games in puzzle magazines. Classmates.com is adding games, but the few they have can be found elsewhere. Even Apple News has digital versions of classic newspaper puzzles, as well as few of their own design. These games are usually locked behind a paywall, so I ignore them, but the emoji-based one is similar to puzzles I've made. Small world, I guess.
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