EG Cartoon Candy

Linking, not swapping: matching cartoon sweets are joined along a path and leave the board together. The feed gives one line about it, and this page will not stretch that line into claims it does not make.

Joining rather than trading rewires what your eye hunts for. Swap boards teach you to notice the pair standing one square short; here there are only routes, and the gap between an ordinary clear and a large one is whether you followed the route to its end before your finger moved.

Everything about the presentation says all ages: oversized pieces, flat separated colours, no menu to configure and no vocabulary to learn. A child can be shown it once and left alone with it.

Brief, gentle, and a welcome change of hand from the swapping that fills most of this shelf.

1. Spot sweets of one kind sitting shoulder to shoulder.
2. Hold the first and draw through the rest.
3. Carry the route as far as it goes before letting go.
4. Let go to clear, then look at the board again.

Plan the whole route before pressing. Letting go halfway leaves the board untouched here, which stings more than a failed swap does on a grid where nothing is lost by trying.