Candy Crush Saga is one of the biggest games currently. Available on Facebook and Mobile devices, you can play the game and your progress will be shared among your devices.
I have about 1400 friends on Facebook, and this is the first game where I have more than 140 friends playing! That is 10% of the people I know on Facebook!
I could say that the game hits a lot of good Gamification principles.
1) The game has an easy onboarding. The first 20 levels are rather easy, and although it gets progressively difficult, it did not seem impossible.
2) The game is interesting, colorful and catchy music. Its not too cheaply made, and the graphics and gameplay is actually pretty good.
3) The game gets challenging. As the level progresses, it does get increasingly difficult.
4) The game encourages social gaming. With 5 lives to start with, you do get stuck on some levels, and you can ask your friends to give you lives, or you can wait 25 minutes for a life. So the game does benefit people with a lot of friends playing and many of my friends invited me to the game. Otherwise you can always pay for more lives.
There are parts of the game that require friends to give you a ticket to continue, so you need to invite friends and connect with Facebook, which in turn promote the game and get more people to play it.
6) The game is free! Joining the game, getting the app on your phone is free. Progressing in levels is also free!
7) The paid parts of the game is tempting but not essential. I think this is a strong model as some competitive gamers that want to advance WILL pay to move forward, but for casual games to continue playing and attracting more people to play, they can do it for free.
8) Good use of PBLs. There is a good use of the points, badges and levels. You get to see how you do compared to your friends in each level which may encourage you to replay a same level to beat your friend's scores. You also get to see which levels your friends are and your friend's progress.
I really like the implementation of the game, and I think is it one of the most downloaded game on the Android store and it is also the top game now.
I wish for all its success, and unlike a lot of annoyed folks on Facebook when they receive a Candy Crush Saga Request, free free to send me lives or tickets to help me move up the levels!
-- Robin Low
