Friday 25 April 2014

WHY CANDY CRUSH IS SO ADDICTIVE - 3 REASONS ONLY!





According to Wikipedia, 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 smart phones.
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, green Chiclets, 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.

We all can testify to its staying power on us even when we are not playing the game (apologies to those not playing it yet) but the main question is; why is Candy Crush so addictive? I can speak for myself and for the numerous friends that I introduced to the game and they have similar experience of addictiveness. Even when you are not playing the game, you think about the possible moves for that hard level and when that is sorted in your brain, your mood lightens up and all you want to do is just click the icon on your phone or on Facebook. 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. As of March 2013, Candy Crush Saga surpassed FarmVille 2 as the most popular game on Facebook, with 46 million average monthly users.
I have listed out 3 reasons why I think candy crush is (very) addictive far more than any other game on smart phones or any social device you can find anywhere.

1)         CANDY COLOUR:
Candy Crush Saga is highly colourful. Colour brightens our day and lights us up. With the candies all bright and sharp, one will naturally tend towards playing the game, especially if you are having a moody day at the office, gas station or waiting for your food to be served. The candies looking more like edible sweets that can be popped into the mouth at anything (if you can lay your hands on it that is*** lol) gives you that false hope that ‘maybe’, just maybe one of ‘em candies will pop out and you will have a taste. *coversface* (don’t blame me, I wishful think a lot)

2)         COMPETITIVE CURVE:
Candy Crush Saga started on Facebook and you can connect with your friends to find out who got the highest score for each level. That competitive edge make friends want to surpass each other, be on a higher level than the next person and score bigger points in each level than the other. The game looks so harmless and easy to play, yet sometimes when you encounter some stage/level, one can be on it for days trying to move to the next. Why I like candy crush is that it is not a direct competition against friends, you play it personally and alone but the score at the end will be shared with everyone and the highest score have the bragging rights for being the best. (In my mind really, like say them de pay me self, mstchewww). I remember a colleague of mine who saw that I was way ahead of her and she told herself that she was going to surpass me and my record. That was a silent promise she made to herself, yet she came to me to help her cross hard hurdles and stages. Before I knew it, she was way ahead of me and I realised I had been played. She smiled and was very content with herself. (I am yet to meet up with her. I am in level 140… HELLOOOOOO, I have a job to do, I AM NOT paid to play Candy Crush *coversface*).

3)         CANDID CHROMATISATION:
Does that make any sense to you? Neither does it make any sense to me. What I meant to say about candid chromatisation is that the game is timed. If you play the game, you will have 5 lives timed 30 minutes refill for every life used. For every level, there are certain numbers of moves which is exhaustive in itself and most of the time never enough to make that final breaking move. You will also get to a point where you will need Facebook friends that will have to give you lives to move on to the next level. All these candid timing makes the game super interesting and the higher you go, the harder the game gets. You need a lot of cognitive prowess to break joints and at some point it’s so arithmetic that you might need to write down moves. (Yeah right, I agree, I am jobless; so are YOU *tongueOut* ;p )

So I subsume that all these double C’s as highlighted in my brain are part of the reasons Candy Crush Saga is so addictive or we just might never know. 

Shalom!
(oh, sorry, that was for the last article. You need no peace to play CCS, it gives peace in itself. LOL)

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