fin

This makes me ponder how many unique Mario levels I've completed in my lifetime.

No way she didn't spend thousands of dollars on that fucking game.

If true they wouldn’t have pointed her to another game. Whales are the entire business strategy.
- Adding thousands of levels for 1 whale is unlikely to be profitable. That's a lot of development cost for content that likely won't be seen. Pointing to other games by the same studio is a much better idea if you can get them to make the transition.
- They would have recommended her to play other games they make with the same ad mechanics.
Talking through experience right? I've been playing for around 5 years and I'm only at level 3778. Never spent a single dollar on it.
- I think I got to 400 and gave up. This post says all 4k in under a year. There's no way anyone can play free and do that. Unless they're literally a CC savant, and even then, I doubt it.

Bragging that your mom spent $1000s of dollars on a mobile game.

Mom has expendable cash and is literally the best at something... Don't be too jelly now lol.

Vs half of Lemmy spending thousands of dollars on a rig that plays Stardew Valley...
- Hey, it plays Crusader Kings III too
- "spending thousands of dollars and millions of man hours installing and configuring Arch Linux on a rig that plays Stardew Valley…"
  
  FIFY
- I was ready to be insulted, but then I remembered that I bought a whole ass Steam Deck and I've pretty much used it as a Binding of Isaac machine.
- If it were a game that didn't use a pay to play/continue/win model, I'd agree that she was the best at it. Or at least played it the most. It's hard to say she's the best when you have to spend money to do it and you aren't playing against anyone.
- If a better game comes out, we'll play that.
  
  ... then come back to SDV.
- Hardware and software are not comparable.
I'm at level 3000ish and played on and off for 5 years. Never spent a dime on the game.
- They said she did it in less than a year.
Well that's $1000 well spent if she found joy and entertainment and even something like success by being the number one worldwide in this game. I've seen much more stupider Guinness world records. And much more stupider ways to spend money.
Not necessarily. I've beat several thousand levels of a similar game (because I've trained my brain that playing it means it's sleep time and now it knocks me out) and haven't spent a dime.
If she can afford it and enjoys it, who are we to judge
- People who aren't addicted.

Candy crush now has 15,000 levels. Good luck keeping up with that.

I hate that that's true. And that you know it.
- To be fair I had to search how many levels. I would never have guessed it was that high.
I mean, considering she had finished 4k by 2018, that is totally doable
Yea, they will keep making more I'm sure.
- as long as this mom keeps playing they must keep making levels

Could they not add some level generation?

Is there more variations to even generate past 4k levels??
(Disclaimer idk what the levels look like beyond matching gems)
- There are six colors of standard candy. A 3*3 grid has over 10 million combinations.
- I dont either so I dont know. But as far as I know thats like asking for more levels on like bubble bobble or something? It doesn't make sense to me from the screenshots I've seen. Even with my shitty game Dev experience, I dont see why you would put a limit on the levels unless it encourage people to spend money to "beat it".
- They add 100 or so levels every week.
To give the most simple and likely reason is just so that there are a restricted set of levels. Adding a "freeplay" mode that can generate random maps is not part of the plan because that would make the regular levels look less desirable. There is also many odd quirks available with special rules. It's not just because they did not think about generating random maps for those who finished the game. It is so that they can keep control over the game in a way that players are kept playing longer without risking burnout. They don't want to make the game become a chore but rather a daily task/quest. Spending money to read the last level faster by getting more energy and whatnot is just a plus for them. They know that sunk cost feeling will keep those kinds of players coming back. If not, then it was unlikely the infinite freeplay would.

There's a level limit? I assumed they were algorithmically created.

definitely pathological

This is a flex??? Lol

e.

Now do a speed run.