Candy Crush Saga

Candy Crush Saga is a match-three puzzle video game released by the developer King on April 12, 2012 for Facebook, and on November 14, 2012 for smartphones. 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. The Daily Mail claims that the high profitability of the game has prompted the UK Office of Fair Trading to push for guidelines on games with exploitative game mechanics. A major expansion to the game was launched in December 2013.

Gameplay
This game is a variation of match-three games such as Bejeweled. Each level has a game board filled with differently coloured candies, and might contain obstacles. These different colours include the red jelly bean, the orange lozenge, the yellow lemon drop, the green square, the blue lollipop head, and the purple cluster. 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 colour. Each level contains a certain objective that must be completed in a given number of moves (or on a time limit); some levels require clearing "jelly" off the board by making matches on top of them, reaching a certain score, getting ingredient items to the bottom of the board, or having to clear certain amounts or combinations of candies. Levels may also contain blocks to make them more difficult, such as meringue or liquorice swirls, chocolate (which spreads across the board if left uncleared), bombs (which end the level if they are not matched before they go off), and others. Boosters can be earned or purchased to provide assistance during levels. In a secondary campaign known as the "Dreamworld", an additional mechanic is introduced where players must maintain a balance on a scale throughout the level, by controlling their matches of two certain colors of candies so it does not fall all the way to one side.

Different "special candies" can be formed by matching a combination of 4 or 5 in a certain formation, such as a "wrapped" candy (which acts like a bomb; clearing the 8 surrounding candies, falling, and exploding one more time), a "striped" candy (which clears either an entire row or column), or a "color bomb" (which removes all candies with the same color of the one it is matched with). Special candies can also be matched together, producing varying effects (for example, matching a color bomb with a striped candy turns all of the candies of its color into striped candies, which are immediately detonated).

The game is primarily monetized through in-app purchases (through either a credit card or Facebook Credits); players begin with five "lives", lost whenever a level is failed. When they are exhausted, users can either send requests to their Facebook friends for more lives, wait for them to replenish themselves (a life is re-gained every half-hour), or purchase them. At certain points, primarily at the start of new "episodes", users must also either purchase, or receive a request from at least three friends before they may access the next set of levels. Boosters can also be bought using cash or Facebook credits.

Characters

 * Tiffi: Tiffi (short for Toffette) is the game's main character. She is a blonde girl with pigtails and is introduced in the first episode: Candy Town. She walks the player through the tutorial and introduces the Jelly Levels. She also travels around the game map and helps others with their problems. In Sweet Surprise, after level 215, Mr. Toffee & the Easter Bunny will solve "Tiffi's Problem". In Savory Shores, she encounters her underwater twin.
 * Mr. Toffee: Mr. Toffee is a tall man with orange hair. He helps the player when he/she first starts playing Candy Crush Saga. He walks the player through the tutorial and introduces the "Target Score Levels" and powerup tip.
 * Easter Bunny: A bunny who introduces Candy Order levels

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

Candy Crush Saga, the most popular app on Facebook, had more than 56 million likes on the application page. It is also the highest-grossing app in the Apple and Google app stores.

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 in the US section of the iOS App Store alone.

As of October 2013, Candy Crush is the third most popular free app and the highest grossing app in the Google Play store.

As of November 2013, the game has been installed 500 million times across Facebook and iOS and Android devices.

In December 2013, King.com began running advertisements for Candy Crush Saga on Japanese television. Partially attributed to these advertisements, in the first week of December 2013, Candy Crush Saga jumped from a position outside the top-100 most-downloaded iPhone games in Japan to the No. 1 position on December 6th, 2013. "On Android, the game jumped from No. 83 on Nov. 30 to the No. 23 on the most-downloaded game on Dec. 4."

Reception
According to review aggregating website Metacritic, the game received an average review score of 79/100, indicating generally positive reviews.

Candy Crush Saga is Eurogamer's Ellie Gibson's 2013 game of the year.