Candystand has been around since 1997, yet somehow I totally missed it until a couple of months ago. It's a great free-to-play site with many (many) games that you won't find anywhere else!
There are NO membership options, so everyone has access to the same things! I like that. ^_^ If you REALLY want to spend money you can buy a t-shirt, but that's it!
Layout
I really love Candystand's web design. ^_^ They use bright colors and cartoon mascots, yet it doesn't feel like a website for kids. That's not easy to pull off!
Honestly, the entire site is well designed. I'm never lost and can usually get wherever I need to go within 1-2 clicks.
Games
When it comes to games, Candystand beats the pants off of every other site I've seen so far. They host many different types of games and lots of them. How many games? Oh, just 207. AND a new game is released every Tuesday!
What really drew me to Candystand is that they have games you can't find anywhere else. Hidden-object and racing games are practically unheard of on a free site that has cash prizes. Meanwhile, Candystand has an entire section dedicated to racing games!
Tickets and Prizes
This is where Candystand fails me. And it's disappointing, because I really like so many of their games. :(
You earn 100 tickets every time you submit a score. ANY score. You can earn up to 100 bonus tickets per game with facebook tie-ins, for a max of 200 tickets for any game.
I hate this because there is no incentive to improve your gameplay. You get the same exact number of tickets whether you spend an hour racking up 20 million points, or spend 30 seconds waiting for the game to load and submitting a score of 0. It's still 100 tickets. That sucks.
As for the prizes... Oi.
First off, the prize page is deceptive.
5 prizes this week? Score!!
From the banner you'd think that they have weekly prizes, right?
Wrongo.
Darn.
If you can't read the light print, the entry period for that $25 gift card lasts for 25 days. Believe it or not, out of the 5 prizes featured, 25 days is the shortest entry time! The rest of the prizes have a 2-3 month entry period. Why is this bad? Well, the longer a sweepstakes runs, the more time people have to enter it. (Obvious statement of the day.) Which means that there are more entries in the pot, and you have a smaller chance of actually winning. The BEST sweeps to enter are the ones that last a day to a week.
Also, assuming that they put up another $25 gift card every 25 days, that still means Candystand awards only $620 in prizes every 3 months. (Note: They may add other prizes within those months. But they definitely aren't awarding thousands of dollars in prizes every month, as many other sites do.)
I haven't played Candystand very long, so I have no idea if it's always been like this. But it feels like they started as an ordinary games site and just tacked on the rest. Tickets and prizes certainly aren't the focus.
Community
Although the 207 (and counting) games are awesome, they are all solo games. I'm usually not very chatty when I'm gettin' my game on, so it's not a big deal to me. ^_^ But if you're a social butterfly the absence of chat rooms may bug you. (Pun intended!)
If you really MUST TALK then you could try the OMGPOP section of Candystand. That section features multiplayer games and even customizeable avatars! The downside is that you don't earn tickets from those games, so the whole "playing games to win prizes" thing won't work.
All of this means that the Candystand community is limited to your facebook friends. Don't have any facebook friends who play? Well that sounds like a great reason to go to Candystand's facebook page and meet some people! ^_^
Don't have a facebook page? Set up a fake one and have fun!
And if ya just can't get enough Candystand, you can find them on Twitter and YouTube too!
Final Opinion
Candystand is a top notch game site, but if your main goal is prizes... well... I'd say play Candystand anyway. ^_^ The games are fun and you should enter every free sweeps you can. Although the odds of winning are small, you have NO chance of winning if you don't play at all. (Hah! I rhymed!)
Swing by for fun, but don't expect to win anything. Which is pretty much my advice for every gaming site out there anyway. ^_^