The slate

Three free candy match-3 games, read slowly

ComboSlate is a one-person editorial desk in Brisbane that reads free mobile puzzle games the way a books page reads novels: one at a time, over a fortnight, with a plain opinion at the end.

Three candy-themed titles are on the slate this month. All three install for nothing from Google Play, all three are built on the same three-in-a-row idea, and all three feel like different games after an hour on the couch. This page sets out where they part company — the shape of a typical sitting, how steep the first evening is, and whether the board keeps working once the aeroplane mode goes on.

Nothing here is a shop. We do not host games, we do not run a store front, and no studio pays for a place on the slate. Everything below was played on a handset that belongs to the person writing this, in the same fortnight, so the notes can honestly be compared with each other.

Write to the desk Open the comparison

Published from: Brisbane City, Queensland. One desk, no advertising, nothing sponsored by a studio.
Kept current: The slate is read again whenever a listed title ships a substantial update.
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Side by side

How the three boards compare

The columns below are the five things that actually changed our experience of these games: what the board asks of you, how long a sitting lasts before it feels finished, how steep the opening hour is, whether the game survives a dead connection, and the public score on the Australian Google Play store.

Three free candy match-3 titles, played on the same handset over a fortnight.
Title	Format on the board	Typical sitting	Entry curve	Offline play	Play score
Sweet Candy	Classic match-3 laid out along an illustrated world map	6–9 minutes, three or four boards	Gentle — one new idea every few boards, no timers for the first hour	Whole campaign	4.7 Casual
Candy Smash Mania	Match-3 with power pieces, line clears and colour orbs	4–6 minutes, usually one board	Brisk — move limits and locked tiles appear around board thirty	Boards only, events need a connection	4.5 Casual
Candy Blast – Jigsaw Puzzle	Jigsaw frames fed by timed match-3 waves	10–14 minutes, hard to stop at one frame	Slow — the tutorial runs long and the interface is dense	Whole campaign	4.6 Puzzle

The three titles were picked because they sit on the same shelf — free candy match-3 for Android — and still play nothing alike once the tutorial ends. Scores in the last column are the public Google Play figures shown on the Australian store and are the developers' numbers, not ours.

Time on the board

Each title was installed on a mid-range Android handset and played to at least level forty across a fortnight, in the sittings people actually have: a bus trip, a kettle boiling, ten minutes before the lights go out.
What the columns measure

Board format, the shape of a normal sitting, how steep the opening hour feels, behaviour with the connection switched off, and the public Australian store score. Nothing in the table is scored by us on a scale — the reading is in the words.
What we leave out

Store ranking, install counts and the wording of the listing itself. Those describe a marketing department rather than a board, and they change faster than the games do.

Game by game

The slate, board by board

Longer notes on each title: what the first evening feels like, where the design starts asking more of you, and the one thing we would change. Screenshots come from the developers' own Google Play listings and are shown here to illustrate the writing.

Sweet Candy

Casual · match-3 · free to install

4.7 Google Play · Australia

Sweet Candy is the plainest of the three and the easiest to hand to somebody who has never swiped a candy board. The pieces are drawn large enough to read on a small handset, the boards are wide rather than tall, and the first two dozen levels introduce exactly one idea at a time: clear the jelly, drop the cake to the bottom row, free the striped piece before the moves run out.

Progress runs along an illustrated map rather than a counter, so a sitting ends on a visible landmark — the top of a hill, the edge of a new world — which makes it easy to put the phone down. Sessions settled at six to nine minutes for us, or three to four boards, and the whole campaign kept working with the connection off.

Two things we would change. The celebration animation after a cleared board runs about a second too long and cannot be shortened, and the map redraws itself from the beginning every time the app is reopened, which costs a few seconds before the next board. Neither is enough to spoil it; both are the sort of thing you notice on day ten rather than day one.

Sweet Candy on Google Play

Sweet Candy gameplay: a wide board of lollipops and jelly pieces above a decorated cake tile — Left, a mid-campaign board — right, the map that marks where a sitting ended

Sweet Candy progress map linking World 1, World 2 and World 3 along a curving path — Left, a mid-campaign board — right, the map that marks where a sitting ended

Candy Smash Mania: Match 3 Pop

Casual · match-3 · free to install

4.5 Google Play · Australia

The busiest board on the slate. Matches of four and five build line clears and colour orbs, and the game hands them out freely in the opening hour, so the first evening feels like a light show. It is the one we reached for in a queue: four to six minutes, one board, done.

Around board thirty the design changes character. Move limits tighten, locked tiles arrive, and the pace shifts from relaxed to deliberate — which is welcome, though the interface stays as loud as it was at the start. Daily events need a connection; the numbered boards do not.

Candy Smash Mania on Google Play

Candy Smash Mania board with a vertical line of heart sweets lining up for a clear — A board mid-clear, with hearts lining up

Candy Blast – Jigsaw Puzzle

Puzzle · jigsaw and match-3 · free to install

4.6 Google Play · Australia

Candy Blast splits its attention between a jigsaw frame you fill in over many sittings and timed match-3 waves that feed it. That is why the sittings are the longest here — you rarely stop, because the picture is one piece short.

The tutorial is the longest of the three and the screen carries a lot of small icons, so it takes a couple of evenings to settle in. Once it does, this is the most complete campaign on the slate, and every part of it runs with the connection off.

Candy Blast on Google Play

Candy Blast timed wave: a tall board of stars and jelly blocks with a one-minute counter — A timed wave, with the counter running

Editorial model

How this desk works, and what Slate Weekly is

ComboSlate carries no advertising, no affiliate links and no sponsored placements. The pages you are reading are free and stay free, and nothing on this site is unlocked by paying.

One thing here is paid: Slate Weekly, an email letter written by the same desk. Each letter takes a level or a board concept our editor has designed on paper — the layout, where the power pieces sit, the order the clears should be made in — and walks through it step by step, with a diagram of the booster chain and notes on why a given opening works. It is a design letter about match-3, not a code, an unlock or an advantage inside any of the games described above.

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