Pop Pop Candies

This one is a shooter wearing sweets. You fire candies up into the cluster, colours matching colours, and the group comes down — the match-3 family tree crossed with the aiming problem of a bubble game.

Two formats sit side by side. The hundred-plus puzzle levels are designed problems with a solution to find; the marathon endurance levels are the opposite, running until you fail and measuring how long you lasted. They reward different things: puzzles reward the right shot, marathons reward never taking a bad one.

Strategy and reflex both matter, and the balance shifts as the cluster descends — early shots can be speculative, late ones cannot.

The two formats also suit different moods. Puzzle levels are for the evening where you want a problem with an answer; marathons are for the twenty minutes where you want something to hold your attention and ask nothing of you beyond staying awake. Having both in one game means it survives a change of mood without being closed.

1. Check the colour of the candy you are about to fire.
2. Aim into a group of that colour and release.
3. In puzzle levels, look for the shot that collapses the most; in marathons, take only shots you are sure of.
4. Keep the cluster away from the bottom.

Treat a missed shot as double the cost it looks: you lose the candy and you add to the cluster. In marathon levels that arithmetic is the whole game, and patient players outlast quick ones every time.