So, you’ve come looking for those Candy Crush strategies. You are in luck, my friend: I’ve crawled through the sugary forests to bring you the guide you need.

1. Your girlfriend convinces you while you are in the middle of a Deus Ex firefight that you should start playing Candy Crush: Soda Saga with her. After a few moments of fantasizing that this will mean she might one day co-op with you in a Katamari game, you agree to try it out. You hate Freemium games on principle of having to wait for more lives, but King games has built an empire, and you, as the Editor of a Games Section, should try it out.

2. You download the game onto your smartphone, decide not to link it to your Facebook, because you know the pain of Candy Crush requests from friends and don’t want to be part of the problem. You’re several hours into your replay of the Mass Effect series, so you play levels during load screens.

3. You quickly realize that you’ll never catch up to your girlfriend, who’s far into the triple digit levels, so you suggest to her that you both start another King game, Farm Heroes Super Saga. She, a fan of these “puzzle” games, agrees.

4. It’s one in the morning, and your alarm threatens to wake you up in four hours for physical therapy, but between binge-watching Amazon TV and playing this ridiculous game, you cannot seem to sleep. It should be noted here that the strategy of the levels, that are influenced by the direction of your swipes, is becoming slightly clearer, and you half convince yourself that you are getting good at these kinds of games.

5. There are no timed levels, so feel comfortable in taking as much time as you need. Do not start jabbing your thumbs wildly at your screen when you become frustrated by your absolute lack of luck.

6. You begin to dream of matching increasingly complex series of cartoon vegetables.

7. Your girlfriend has surpassed you by several levels, but is stuck on a Hard Level. You become determined to catch up to her, after all you are the gamer in this relationship. You miss most of your weekly movie night, because your eyes are glued to your screen. She assures you the film was excellent and calls you an addict. Once your in-game lives are restored you play for another hour after she’s fallen asleep.

8. Your colleague asks how far into your Mass Effect replay you are and how your think piece on the Andromeda news is shaping up. You sweat a little as you lie and excuse yourself to go to the bathroom so you can play more Farm Heroes.

9. It is a Wednesday when you link your account to your Facebook so that you can beg your unsuspecting friends for more lives.

10. When matching vegetables, keep your number of moves in mind. If you have to collect the vegetable amounts in fewer moves, it is not always best to create the Big Vegetables as you may not be able to collect them later on.

11. The first time you have ever shouted in your relationship is when you find out your girlfriend has completed the level you’ve been stuck on for six days. In fact, she got a high score on the level. You, suddenly a very sore loser, yell that she just got lucky. She tells you that she thinks she’s created a monster.

12. When your boss accuses you of playing phone games in a Very Important Meeting, you begin to wonder if you do have a problem. Matching five of any vegetable in a straight line will clear all vegetables of that kind off of the board.

13. You’ve decided to do a cleanse. Maybe a few days without the game will do you well.

14. The squirrels and goats are more effective if you match vegetables in a four-vegetable square formation directly next to them. This is really a life saver.

15. Your girlfriend refuses to talk to you about these, and, I quote, other “ridiculous games” anymore and accuses you of being, again a quotation, “horribly unreasonable.” You see carrots and tomatoes sliding down her face and wonder how you let it get this far.

16. On the morning of your first couples counseling session you find the original Candy Crush game on your phone. Before you can stop yourself, you uninstall it from the device. A weight has been lifted! You feel free from the all-seeing eyes of King games.

17. Your couples session ends when the unmistakable Candy Crush music emits from your therapist’s phone.

Al Rosenberg