Candy Crush Jelly Saga has been released to great fanfare, and is currently available for download in the iOS App Store, Android Google Play and the Windows store for free.
As the third installment of the extremely successfully Candy Crush franchise, Candy Crush Jelly Saga has a lot to measure up to in the eyes of its developer King, who is currently in the process of being acquired for $5.9 billion by Activision Blizzard. The deal will be wrapped up by late spring if all goes according to plan, according to The Guardian.
Candy Cash Saga, originally released four years ago, still holds the No. 4 spot in the top-grossing games category in the Apple iOS App Store. Candy Crush Soda Saga, released two years ago, currently holds place No. 7 in the same iOS App Store category.
Tjodolf Sommestad, Candy Crush senior vice president at King, spoke to GamesBeat about the release of Candy Crush Jelly Saga and the delicate line King straddles between bringing something fresh to the table and keeping existing players feeling comfortable in the franchise.
“We see it as a big responsibility on behalf of our players. We know so many people love the original game as well as Candy Crush Soda Saga, and the team would never want to disappoint them,” Sommestad said to GamesBeat. “That said, it does bring some benefits [to work on a beloved series]. We know our existing players are comfortable with the core game mechanics, so [we] don’t have to spend as much time testing the core elements. We can then spend more time looking at the new things we can add to the game that we think our players will enjoy.”
Candy Crush Jelly Saga features an "adventurous yeti girl" called Jenny who is hitting the Candy Kingdom pavement in hopes of finding her Uncle Yeti. King, in addition to the 120 levels included in Candy Crush Jelly Saga, has added two new game modes to Candy Crush Jelly Saga called Jelly Mode and Boss Mode.
“We start by listening to our players and looking at what they have enjoyed most in previous titles,” Sommestad said to GamesBeat. “We then make sure we add those elements and core mechanics to each new franchise title. It helps to have some of those familiar elements that we know players love — for instance, the way you can match to make special candies that help you in the game.”
While in Boss Mode, Candy Crush Jelly Saga players will battle the Jelly Queen and her vile minions, while in Jelly Mode Candy Crush Jelly Saga players will need to synchronize the sequences of jellies and candles to be able to finish a level.
King has a large roster of other mobile games such as Alpha Betty Saga, Bubble Witch 2 Saga, Farm Heroes Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Diamond Digger Saga, Papa Pear Saga, Pepper Panic Saga and Scrubby Dubby Saga.
Unfortunately for King, none of them are quite as popular as the Candy Crush franchise has proven to be. Fortunately for you, if you don’t feel like downloading King’s games on your mobile device, King does host certain games on its server and allows players to play them online in their web browsers.
