Submitted by Sammy Snyder on
Candies 'n Curses is a "spooky sugar-coated platformer" where you play as the adventurous Molli Pop. The game begins with a long opening that introduces Molly and explains her motivation, a dare from friends, for investigating her town's alleged haunted house. Upon entering, Molly gets locked in the house where she meets the ghostly butler who asks her to clean up some of the bad ghosts with her flashlight. Molly must survive 6 different regions of the Phantom King's mansion while taking out ghosts, skeletons and other spooky things.
Candies 'n Curses features simple touchscreen controls where you swipe up and down to change levels, and left and right to run back and forth. You play in portrait mode jumping between 4 floors full of ghosts and goblins. You can run left and right to kill as many enemies as possible by touching them with your flashlight before they touch you. Each room has a certain amount of ghosts you must kill to unleash the boss who you can defeat for a key to unlock the next level.
The boss fights are what saves Candies 'n Curses from being a mindless freemium game where you just run around smashing into things. The boss fights are cleverly designed and make good use of the game's simple controls. Each room also introduces new enemies with different abilities upping the difficulty while keeping the game fresh.
Each time you die you can revive Molly by watching an ad, but die twice and you'll have to start all over. When you die a second time you will be given the option to watch another ad to double your collected souls. This is the in-game currency that you can use to unlock new weapons like lanterns and machetes. Additionally you can ectoplasm to purchase charms to upgrade your weapons.
Candies 'n Curses includes daily challenges, a combo meter and leaderboard support. You can purchase an ad-free version of the game for $9.99, but there is currently a 72-hour launch sale for $4.99.Candies 'n Curses is available to download for free on the App Store.
