Why Are Mobile Games Like Candy Crush So Addictive
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If you havent played Candy Crush, then you must have at least heard about it. It is one of the most addictive mobile games ever made. Other addictive mobile games include Angry Birds and Pokémon GO.
But what makes these games so insanely addictive?
A gambling expert, Mark Griffiths, points out that it starts with games designed to deliver short-lived experiences. You can play these games between activities, such as between commutes. They help to keep you distracted and offer excellent stress relief.
Some of these games also operate on the concept of operant conditioning. Like casino slots games such as 918kiss, mobile games reward some actions and punish others. This conditioning compels you to keep playing to get as many rewards as possible.
According to some experts, addiction occurs around the pleasure centre of our brains. A neurotransmitter known as dopamine controls and regulates this pleasure centre. When you perform a task that stimulates the reward centre, you also stimulate the release of dopamine.
Dopamine gives you some kind of high. When you play an addictive mobile game, you stimulate the reward centre as well as dopamine production, which helps you manage your stress levels.
Other factors that make mobile games addictive include the following:
Gamification Core Drive #: Scarcity And Impatience
One of Candy Crush Sagas most frustrating points is that they only give you five lives and when you lose one, it takes you 30 minutes to gain it back. That means that if you play a level and lose it five times, you have to wait roughly 2 1/2 hours before you can play again. This use of the Fixed Interval Torture leaves players with an incredible sense of impatience to get back to the game.
Of course, you can buy another set of five lives as an in-app purchase if you dont want to wait. But there are other ways to get more lives as well, like through asking your friends or by connecting your Facebook account to as many mobile devices as you want. The game is available on the iPad, the iPhone, and most android phones, each of which will start your lives back at five, which means players are often switching between multiple devices in order to keep playing.
This gives Candy Crush Saga incredible penetration in the mobile market, which means that players have the game at their disposal while theyre out waiting in lines, riding the train, or stuck in traffic. This just encourages more and more opportunities for play until the player has developed an addictive habit to keep them going with the game.
Game Core Drive #: Epic Meaning And Calling
Unlike most games, Candy Crush Saga does not have a particularly compelling narrative that, on its own, convinces the participant to take action. True, you ride a little train solving problems in the magical world, but its mostly just funny problems such as helping a magical dragon bathe in candy, which is not a very strong Im doing this because its a mission bigger than myself.
Instead, the epic meaning and calling comes from game techniques such as Beginners Luck, Destiny Child, and getting a Free Lunch.
Players experience Beginners Luck when they start the early levels, which allow them to easily get three stars for matching candies and crushing them.
As they continue playing, many players can go through the first 10 levels and get three stars on each on the first try. This makes them think, Hey, Im pretty good at this I should keep playing.They feel like they are destined to take this journey and see how far they can get without losing lives.
As they progress even further through the levels, players start to unlock charms and boosters that give them extra moves, special abilities, and cool new ways to crush candy. Now, eventually theyll have to pay for these terms and boosters, but initially, they get 1 to 3 freebies that they can use during the game. This is the Free Lunch that makes them feel like they are getting bonuses due in part to their performance.
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Top 10 Games Like Candy Crush You Can Play Today
Last updated on by Alvin Lau
Whether you just need something new or youve been stuck on the same level for what feels like forever , were here for you. Sometimes you need something that isnt Candy Crush, but still gives you all the feels and lets you indulge that need for semi-mindless gameplay on your coffee break or while walking to your next class.
Weve collected what we feel are the ten best games like Candy Crush for these purposes. Theyre all great fun all on their own, and theyre similar enough to CC to appease hardcore fans while still being independently awesome games all by themselves. Say hello to your new addictions!
Pokmon Caf Remix Switch And Mobile
Keeping things sweet, Pokémon Café Mix is a lovely puzzle game from the iconic franchise. In this title, youll take charge of a quaint little cafe that just so happens to be the favourite hang of some series favourite Pokémon. To keep your café running at full tilt, youll have to solve puzzles, unlock tasty treats, and persuade new Poképatrons to stop by and smell the coffee.
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Delete These 10 Addicting Games From Your Phone Right Now
Topics: Tech Dependency, Technology
Do you remember Flappy Bird, one of the most addicting games of this decade? It started as most mobile apps do: relatively unknown for its first few months of existence. The game gained traction around December of 2013 then exploded in popularity during the following weeks.
Countless news articles cropped up throughout the month covering the games increasing popularity. But the excitement soon turned to harassment directed at the games creator, Dong Nguyen. He was criticized for a variety of reasons, from accusations that he stole the games art to his alleged use of bots to create fake reviews.
Nguyen couldnt handle the increasingly vile commentary on the addictiveness of Flappy Bird. On February 8, 2014, he tweeted to followers that he would delete the game from the App Store within 22 hours. He held to his word and the most addicting game of 2014 disappeared the following day.
Gamification Core Drive #: Loss And Avoidance
The last core drive, loss and avoidance, is also used in Candy Crush Saga. When a player connects to Facebook, all other players they are friends with can see how many days they have been stuck on a particular level. This Scarlet Letter can make it socially unappealing to not move forward in the game. Candy Crush Saga also encourages players to connect to Facebook from their mobile app because Facebook syncs their progress. If you dont sync up, and you lose your phone or break your iPad, then through Lost Progress , youve lost all the effort youve invested into the game and will have to start over from the beginning.
The game also makes use Weep Tunes and Visual Graves to give negative feedback when you lose a level.
Finally, this game is based on tons of levels that take between three and five minutes to play, each. This means that an avid player can easily work through 100 levels in a couple weeks. This engages the Last Mile Drive where the player keeps on playing because theyre so close to the goal and theyve already invested too much time and energy in the game to quit.
But are they that close to completing the game? King continues to add new episodes to the end of the map, which means the players can keep going for awhile. The longer they play, the harder it is to stop.
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Addictive And Relaxing Games
As finals week approaches, everyone needs to find something to do to unwind. Its not my usual tech angle, but here are some relaxing and in some cases, downright addictive games to play.
Candy Crush
Candy Crush is a Bejeweled clone with a sweet twist almost everything in the game has to do with sugary treats. You play this game by matching 3 or more candies of the same type in a row to make them disappear. Matching more than 3 gives you powered up candies. 4 candies in a row give you striped candies that destroy all candies in a row or column. Five or more candies in a row creates a color bomb a candy bomb that destroys all candies on the board of a specific color. The game currently has about 350 levels but theyre added 15 at a time in groups of episodes so its unlikely therell be an end to this game any time soon. Available to iPad, Android and PC users , the time consuming matching of Candy Crush Saga can be played virtually anywhere.
Minecraft
Minecraft is available on IPhone, Android, Xbox 360 and as of February, UKs Raspberry Pi.
Subway Surfer
Angry Birds
Plants vs. Zombies
Farm Heroes Super Saga
Platform: Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, PC, Mac Free with in-app purchases
Whether you played the original or are making your first post-CC forage into the world of other match-three games, youre going to adore Farm Heroes Super Saga. The premise is simple and familiar to those whove played any of the King games. You match three items farm-fresh veggies and fruits in this case in order to earn points.
Matching more than three results in specialty items which are worth more points, and the higher you go, the more difficult the levels become. Your arch nemesis in this game is Rancid Raccoon, whos been winning all the Country Shows through cheating. Hurry up and match those fruits and veggies to defeat this enemy of all that is good!
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The Treasures Of Montezuma Free
This is probably one of the best games like candy crush that I ever played. Its structured like an ancient palace with blocks moving to a zenith, and they cannot be stopped with time. One needs to direct and redirect them in such a manner that you kill as many blocks as possible and score high. This is indeed the third game in the Zuma series and is probably the best. The kick is the boosters that can help you score much higher if you hit it right.
Farm Heroes Saga Free Offline Match 3 Games
This game is the most similar to Candy Crush in terms of everything. Your task is to join on a journey of sweetness and cuteness with vegetables. And also, you need to catch the infuriating vegetables by matching three or, obviously, more if possible.
You get new big vegetables, new combinations, and a lot of new features that any match-three game lovers will enjoy. This game is a definite winner. It will make you feel as though you never really stopped playing Candy Crush but just upgraded to its new version.
In this colorful match 3 games by King online games, you will traditionally have to rearrange multi-colored blocks, collecting them in three or more. The gameplay of this game is well designed, based on combos and chain reactions it has many bonuses and various power-ups that accelerate the passage.
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Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells
Platforms: iOS, Android
Next up, we have a three-match puzzler for Candy Crush fans who have at least some familiarity with the wizarding world of Harry Potter.
While its not necessary to have read every book or even seen any of the films, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells becomes a lot more fun when you have a bit of context regarding the magically-based fantasy series.
This includes appearances from iconic and beloved Harry Potter characters across 1,000+ levels that build upon the tried and true match-three formula.
Can You Complete Candy Crush
This is an exciting and addictive game that players love to uncover new levels. Although there are extremely hard stages, you would want to reach the highest possible level by learning all the cheat codes and techniques.
The Candy Crush saga seems endless as King continues to release new levels every time players complete each stage. It is impossible to finish it unless the developers stop adding more steps. Additionally, it may be difficult and near impossible for most players to crack. Due to this, you can get frustrated and quit before going further.
You may succeed in the available stages, knowing that you have achieved, but King will soon develop a new Candy Crush level for you. They intentionally retain their users by making more games to keep you entertained.
Luckily, you can consider certain skills to help you amass more levels to get you closer to finishing. You can arrange the candies for starters so that they can assist you in creating the most special items that will eventually crush a wider area on the board to open up the blocked candies. Similarly, try your best to match a color bomb and a wrapped one to increase your winning chances.
You can also reset your time by around three hours if you dont have active lives. To reset it, open the game, go back to Settings, and then set the correct time this way, you will gain unlimited lives. Another trick is to obtain numerous hammers without going for the jackpot since you will need them later.
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Grindstone Switch And Mobile
Grindstone mixes classic match-three mechanics with a combat system that feels as good as it does addictive. The game doesnt sacrifice any vivid colours for its cavernous setting either, and would be best described as Candy Crush with blood and guts for all the right reasons. Theres a quiet narrative underneath this game too, which is a rarity in the puzzle genre, and even rarer when executed in the manner that Grindstone manages.
GrindstoneGrindstoneNintendo $19.99 Play Now Network N earns affiliate commission from qualifying sales.
There you have it! Those are our picks for the best games like Candy Crush on Switch and mobile. For more head-scratching highlights, be sure to check out our guides to the best puzzle games on Switch and the best mobile puzzle games.
Candy Crush Jelly Saga
Platform: Android, iOS, PC, Mac Free with in-app purchases
For those who want something thats about as close to CC as possible, Jelly Saga is the answer to your sugary-sweet prayers. Rescue the familiar Yeti, defeat the Jelly Queen and catch the infuriating Pufflers by matching three and, of course, more if possible.
With new candies, new combinations and a host of new features that any match-three fan will enjoy, this ones a definite winner that will have you feeling as though you never really stopped playing Candy Crush, but just upgraded.
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Gamification Core Drive #: Ownership And Possession
Candy Crush Saga uses a few forms of ownership and possession to help their players, though they could easily add more of this drive to the game. The primary Virtual Goods within the game are the charms, which are special candies that can be used between 1 to 3 times on any level once activated. These candies are good throughout the entire game, so even though they often run between $25-$50, players are happy to collect them and use them on the more difficult levels that they are having a hard time beating.
The way Candy Crush Saga gets players is by bringing the opportunity to purchase those charms and boosters outside of the shop. At the beginning of each level, they show you exactly which charms and boosters are allowed on the level and fade out the ones that you havent collected yet. They present the charms and boosters as a small set of three or four so it looks like you have one but not the others. This makes players want to purchase the others to complete their Collection Set , because who doesnt want to have tons of boosters to use on a specific level?
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Plus, if you got mad every time you lost, you would pretty much be mad all the time.
The game has been online for less than a month, but Cirulli says four million people have already played it some 42 million times. Of those 42 million, only 347,000 games have ever ended with the 2048 tile. That’s less than one percent.
Assuming the average 2048 game lasts 8 minutes , 521 years have already been spent playing the game.
? Gabriele Cirulli
But we will be part of that one percent. Oooh, you can count on it.
Now excuse us, while we get back to playing… PLAY 2048 HERE.
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Dots: A Game About Connecting Free
The technical looking simplistic graphics just add to the amaze of the game. Its indeed a game one would prefer to play when a break is needed in the middle of something. It doesnt actually have steps and levels but it a simple time pass game where you would have to join dots to complete a trail. The longer the trail, the more the score. The quicker the trail, the more the time score. And you simply need to keep playing better to complete your own record. Thus, its an excellent game whenever you are stuck in traffic or waiting for an interview, etc.
Learning From Game Mechanics Of Candy Crush
Candy Crush sure did a good job appealing to the mainstream consumer and getting them to pay comfortably on an app. Our goal here is not to make sure we can make good games, but to make sure we learn from the game design and dynamics so we can provide it into useful and productive tasks within Gamification.
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