Candy Box 2

Candy Box 2 came out.  I'm not sure it should be called Candy Box 2 so much as it should be called Candy Box: Origins, or Candy Box: Revelations or something.  It is not a sequel to the original game, but rather a reimagining of it.

I don't mean to criticize, this is a great game.  The original felt a little bit cobbled together and this is more of a cohesive whole.  It offers a great feeling of exploration, very much like A Dark Room.  But also, like a Dark Room, it is not actually very long.  I started playing and won it in the same day, and in fact I started over again near the end of the day to do something a little differently, so my final winning game was probably only four or five hours old.

I don't really mean that as a criticism either.  The game offers more in that short time than a lot of games offer in more, and obviously it doesn't cost you anything to play.  After winning I did some reading about different ways to approach the challenges in the game and I was very happy to see that there are actually multiple ways to get past certain encounters.  There isn't even one way that feels like the right way, instead there are lots of tools available and you can put them to use.  The game doesn't punish you for doing things "wrong".

So I like Candy Box 2 and I would definitely play a sequel (as in actual sequel) or another game by aniwey.  It's a has a nice old-timey feel to it.  I might even play this game again one day to see if I can win without using a certain strategy.