You haven't heard from me in a couple days because I temporarily traded TouchArcade Towers for King Entertainment's Studios in Barcelona, Spain, and the reason I was there was the launch of Bubble Witch 3 Saga [Free], the new addition to the Bubble Witch franchise that has just released worldwide. If you haven't played the previous two games, Bubble Witch is King's take on bubble popping, which hasn't managed to gain the traction of King's megahit, Candy Crush. Still, the Bubble Witch franchise is quite fun, and the new entry tries to shake up both the franchise and the genre.
Bubble Witch 3 Saga has tried to remedy some of the frustrations of the previous entry by firstly extending the aiming line all the way to the top of the screen, saving you from the tiny little thing that used to be the aiming line in the past. The reason for this change points to one of the overaching design philosophies of Bubble Witch 3; removing frustration and making the game easier to play on the go. For that same reason, the developers have added a new mechanic whose purpose is to do away with the frustration of getting a useless bubble and having to just dump it somewhere on the screen. Now, when you don't have any use for that red or green bubble at the bottom of your screen, you can toss it into the hat of Nero the cat; for every four bubbles you hand over to Nero, you get a power-up bubble in return. That idea actually works quite well in practice.
Another major change to the franchise is...