Crescent Moon Games has been around for what must be close to a decade now, and around TouchArcade their brand is more or less synonymous with good games that are almost always worth checking out. Candies ‘n Curses (Free) falls perfectly in line with that, and while the core gameplay is super fun, they threw nearly very freemium shenanigan into the mix- A sad necessity of releasing a mobile game in 2018, it would seem (with rare exception).
Candies ‘n Curses kicks off with an oddly long intro segment which sets the scene for the game: You play as a character named Molli who accepted a dare to check out a nearby haunted mansion, which just so happens to be packed to the brim with ghosts. You fight these ghosts (initially) with your flashlight by running into them kinda sorta like Slayin ($0.99). Unlike Slayin, you play Candies ‘n Curses in portrait mode and there’s multiple levels of enemies which for lack of a better comparison almost gives me a classic (non-Super) Mario Bros vibe.
Using simple swipe controls you can send Molli up and down a level my swiping up or down, and you run right or left by swiping in that direction. The cadence of the game basically involves jumping between floors and in between ghosts to kill as many of them as possible as quickly as you can to keep your combo meter rolling. You’ll eventually reach a (often very cleverly designed) boss fight, and if you manage to make it past that, you’ll proceed to t...