Candy Cruch Saga

Candy Crush Saga is a game that was released on April 12, 2012 for Facebook, and then released on November 14, 2012 for smartphones. It was developed by King. As of March 2013, Candy Crush Saga surpassed FarmVille 2 as the most popular game on Facebook, with 46 million average monthly users.It is a variation on their browser game Candy Crush.

Gameplay[edit source | editbeta]

A woman playing Candy Crush Saga on an iPad.

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Playing Candy Crush Saga on an iPad.

This game is a variation of match-three games such as Bejeweled. Each level has a game board filled with differently colored candies, and might contain obstacles. The basic move of this game is horizontally or vertically swapping the positions of two adjacent candies, to create sets of three (or more) candies of the same color.

Levels

This game is separated into levels, and each level has its own requirements to complete. These requirements include eliminating certain ingredients, removing gel-covered candies, or simply reaching a certain score. The Facebook version of Candy Crush Saga currently has 470 levels, and a new set of levels is released approximately every 3 weeks. The smartphone versions of Candy Crush Saga currently have 410 levels.

Candy Crush Saga will sometimes require a player to unlock a level before it can be played. A level can be unlocked by asking Facebook friends for help, or by paying money.

Life system

The player is given a default maximum number of five lives. The player needs at least one life to play a level. If the player fails to complete a level, a life is deducted. Lives will regenerate at a rate of one life every 30 minutes. The player can also restore lives by asking Facebook friends for help, by paying Facebook credits or by paying money (or, on iOS and Android, by setting the device's clock/date forward, although, on some devices, the amount of time skipped forward will have to be made up in the game if the clock is restored to the actual time).

Special Candies

Special Candies are created when four or more candies of the same color are matched together. Special Candies have special effects (e.g. clearing an entire row or column of candies) when they are cleared. Examples of Special Candies include Striped Candies which remove a row of candies, or a column depending on which way the stripes are facing. Wrapped Candies remove the 3x3 box surrounding the wrapper. You can combine two of the wrapped candies to make this an even larger explosion. Another special move you can make is getting five colors of the same candy in a row to make a Color Bomb which removes all candies of a certain color. One last combination of special moves you can make is with a striped candy and color bomb combining to make a blast of striped candies that correspond to that same color.

Special Candy Combinations

If a player tries to swap two adjacent Special Candies, it will generally create a special combination effect. These effects are often more powerful than the individual candies' effects. For example. If you switch a Colour Bomb + Colour Bomb, it will clear all the candies on the board. If you switch a Striped Candy + Striped Candy, the blast will go in both horizontal and vertical way. If you switch a Wrapped Candy + Wrapped Candy, it will do a huge 8x8 explosion two times. If you switch a Colour Bomb + Striped Candy. All the candies of the Striped Candies colour will turn into a striped candy itself and detonate. If you switch a Wrapped Candy + Striped Candy, the candy will absorb everything in 3 rows then become a big candy and clear out three rows horizontally and vertically. If you switch a Colour Bomb + Wrapped Candy, the same colour candies as the wrapped candy will detonate, then when the board cools down, a random color will be detonated again.

Obstacles

Obstacles or blockers appear in some of the levels. Obstacles have a wide variety of properties, and they are all designed to make it more difficult to complete a level. Examples of obstacles include chocolate that tries to slowly fill the entire game board, and tornadoes that randomly destroy spaces on the game board. At time the levels are incredibly difficult and it can be seen even with a dozen or more moves left that it is impossible to complete the level. As a result there are numerous levels which take so long to complete that many people become frustrated or simply lose interest. The constant pressure to buy with real money in order to complete is another sour point for many. Also it is often observed that the timed bomb candies are regularly completely surrounded by other colours and it takes more moves in order to get correct colours near enough to use than the number of moves before the bomb candy explodes, this is often seen as a deliberate ploy on the part of the makers in order to exhaust lives on unfinishable levels. After many many plays at a particular level suddenly this no longer happens suggesting that the software has been designed to do this in order to encourage real money purchases.

Boosters

A booster is a single-use item that can be used to help the player complete a level. Boosters are usually bought with money. Every level in Candy Crush Saga can be completed without the use of boosters,[5] but the game difficulty ramp is designed to encourage the purchase of boosters.[6] Examples of boosters include a Lollipop Hammer that can destroy any game square, and a Free Switch that can swap any two adjacent candies.

Charms

In previous versions of Candy Crush Saga, a player could purchase charm items to help them complete a level. Charms were much more expensive than boosters, because charms could be used repeatedly. As of June 27, 2013, Charms are no longer purchasable.

Characters

Tiffi: Tiffi (short for Toffette) is the main character of the game. She is a blonde girl with pigtails. She travels around the game map, and helps others with their problems.

Mr. Toffee: Mr. Toffee is a tall man with orange hair. He helps the player when they first start playing Candy Crush Saga.

Popularity

Candy Crush Saga had over ten million downloads in December 2012 alone.

Candy Crush Saga is popular on Facebook having more than 45 million likes on the application page. It is the most popular app on Facebook and the highest-grossing app in the Apple and Google app stores.[citation needed]

The game makes an appearance in Psy's music video "Gentleman".

Candy Crush Saga has received particular attention in the Hong Kong media, with reports that one in seven Hong Kong citizens plays the game.

As of July 2013, it has been estimated that Candy Crush Saga has about 6.7 million active users and earns revenue of $633,000 per day.