User blog:Cinnabar The Evil Gem Chemist 55555555555555555550/I have FINISHED CANDY CRUSH!!!!

It has been an AMAZING ride, but today, at 7:49pm, I beat Level 650, the current final level.

I have FINALLY FINISHED CANDY CRUSH after being addicted, on and off, for almost two whole years.

It's safe to say I've spent thousands of hours on Candy Crush, both on the game and on the wikia.

I still remember starting out from humble beginnings. Level 1 was so easy. And was Level 2. Lost are the memories of what the first level I failed was. But I remember the first level I got stuck on was Level 19, back in the good old days when there were only 170 levels and there was a big "BETA" sign above the game.

I remember the time I first played it. It was a horrible day due to real life crap. But I tried to use Candy Crush as an escape, as someone had sent me a request for it. Only 2 of my friends had actually played it, and the furthest anyone had got was Level 29.

I thought there were only twenty levels. I never bothered scrolling up. My first thoughts were, "This is a neat game, but it's a shame that no one plays this". And I was right. No one played Candy Crush at that time. I started before it became a worldwide craze. Then when watching a Skillgaming vid (Level 19), I saw a video for Level 123. I thought it was probably a typo. Never in my life had I seen a game with a Level 123. Then I decided to scroll up and was shocked to see how many levels there were. Ironically, there were only 170, but the path seemed to wind on forever.

Throughout me getting stuck on many levels, I tried looking up online for strategic websites and informative pages on Candy Crush. I found absolutely nothing besides how to make the special candies. Crushingcandies didn't even exist, let alone this place. I looked up online to see if there was an existing Candy Crush Saga Wikia, and surprisingly, there wasn't.

This was around the time where it was really starting to gain popularity. I couldn't believe how many of my friends were now starting to play it. I no longer felt the need to hide that I was playing it, as everyone, male and female, was playing. But they kept on making more levels. And I couldn't keep up with it.

There was a time where I thought "Level 200!?! Pfft I'll have flown to Mars before that happens!".

The 100s took me an incredibly long time. Despite having crushed many levels, I still wasn't very good at the game, and 147, 167 and 181 had me standing for weeks each, plus others. I got bored of the game and used to not play for weeks.

During my absences, they'd just add more and more levels and I fell further and further behind. I've seen the release of all the 200s, 300s, 400s and 500s.

I got so stuck during the 400s, that although I was almost there, I fell right behind again, even when they started releasing 15 levels every 2 months. I was going as slow as the levels being released. In nine months, I cleared only 100 levels. When I got into the early 500s, I got addicted to another game and didn't touch Candy Crush for over two months.

And in the last few days, I decided that now was time to steam on ahead. And through the last three days, I've played Candy Crush endlessly, and fifteen minutes ago, I finally beat the game after a grand total of 723 days, that's 17352 hours, or 1041120 minutes, or 62467200 seconds. I have come to the end of my Candy Crush Saga.

An unbelieveable amount has happened and changed in real life in that time. I can't even begin to list what's happened in this time.

I know it's taken me a very long time to get to the end, but I don't crush candies all day. In fact, I spend more time on here than I do crushing them candies!

"Sooner or later, you'll have to face reality. You'll have to look out the window and think to yourself, 'What have I actually achieved?'"  -Myles Dyer.

Welp, this is what I achieved - better patience, more strategic thinking and the ability to notice patterns a lot better. These will all benefit me in life. Plus I'm the first of all my friends to get to the end!

I guess the only thing left now is Dreamworld!