Game: Sugar Tales

Oy. Is it just me, or is everyone else getting tired of the Candy Crush ripoffs? Perhaps it's not fair to allow King's mega-match-three game own all things sweet, but with millions of people obsessively playing it, it's hard not to. Fair or not, it's hard not to measure all new match-threes against their super-successful predecessor, and match-three social game Sugar Tales is just the latest to suffer by the comparison.Like so many recent match-threes, Sugar Tales embraces a colorful, sweets-related visual theme. It makes a half-hearted attempt to differentiate itself by choosing cake instead of candy and by using a game board made up of hexagonal cells instead of square ones. As some newer match-three games have begun to do, it asks you to match three by clicking on groups of static icons (so long as they're adjacent), rather than moving any of them around. It does, however, change the formula a bit by tossing a cute, googly-eyed monster into the mix."The idea is to keep this cuddly gremlin happy by stuffing his face full of cake. You do that by moving him around the board; as long as there are three or more similar cakes next to one another, he can jump over and gobble them up. Your objective in the beginning is mainly to achieve a certain score within a set number of moves. Later on you're asked to do other things like clear away ice, crates, or angry-looking chocolate chip cookies. As with most match-three games, you're able to create power-ups by matching large groups of similar icons. Exploding croissants and rainbow "super cakes" then create explosive results, and as most of you know, the more explosive effects you achieve, the better.