Candy Crush All-Stars is the world’s largest tournament for King’s candy Crush Saga. This month-long event is in its fourth edition and the biggest yet, offering a $1 million prize pool to the game’s best players. But you may be wondering how to become a top-level player. Candy Crush players? And how do you organize a tournament that helps them prove it?
As the event came to an end last week, we met with some of the Candy Crushand Ben Chin, who beat over 15 million competitors to become the overall winner of Candy Crush All-Stars 2024. Together, they showed us how one of the world’s biggest casual games, open to anyone, can offer a challenge worthy of that million-dollar prize pool.
For Chin, there are some key skills needed to reach the top level: “You definitely need tenacity and perseverance. Getting through the different stages leading up to the All-Stars final definitely takes a lot of time and effort – especially when you get to the final knockout rounds. The final round is 24 hours and that’s all you have, so you really have to be able to stick it out until the end and see it through to the end.”
Given the level of players involved, from a design perspective the team needed to create something that felt familiar, but still presented a new challenge befitting the ten players who made it to the grand final.
“Our inspiration for the All Stars Live Finale came from the desire to create something that would combine the classic elements of candy Crush Saga and offered our finalists new, exciting challenges,” explains Lead Level Designer Therese Sander.
“We wanted to celebrate the journey players have taken with us by offering levels that are visually appealing but mechanically intriguing,” added level designer Oksana Samsonova. “We created nine custom levels for our finalists. [with] different challenges – different modes, the latest game mechanics and recreations of some iconic levels from the game.”
These nine levels required a unique design brief – the team had to create levels that worked without the usual game economy and boosters available to players, and each level had to feel completely unique, so the finalists had to take new approaches with each new level. Through extensive manual testing among the team, the level designers developed a set of levels that required the finalists to refine their approach:
“I actually used several different strategies throughout the tournament and in the finals,” says Chin. “That included being very smart about your moves – when it’s better to clear a level as quickly as possible, or when to stay in a level as long as possible just to maximize the number of points you actually earn per level.”
In a sense, the endgames act as a “battle” between the level designers and the players themselves. When elite players accept the challenge, the designers have the freedom to create levels that may not feel quite as accessible as they would if found in the regular game.
“While the main game gradually becomes more complex, the tournament levels are designed to challenge players’ advanced skills from the start,” says Sander. “This means incorporating more complex mechanics, requiring faster thinking and often demanding a higher level of strategic planning. Our goal is to create levels that make players apply everything they’ve learned in the game so far and think creatively to overcome new obstacles.”
This complexity meant that Chin had to step up his performance even as he met his own high standards: “When it comes to the competitive nature, you have to look at the level and realise, ‘OK, I have limited time, limited moves and different goals. There are obstacles in my way. What are the obstacles?’ I have never planned more than I did in this tournament. I think that will carry over into my future in the game as well.”
That’s exactly the designers’ goal: “The most rewarding thing is to see the joy and excitement that players feel when playing the levels. Seeing players discover new strategies, overcome challenges and share their experiences is incredibly fulfilling,” says Samsonova.
And watching the game’s best players conquer their levels can lead to even more exciting designs later on: “It was incredibly insightful to watch elite players conquer our levels,” Samsonova continues. “These players often use strategies and techniques we didn’t expect, showing the depth and potential of our game mechanics.”
“When we watch their gameplay, we understand how to design levels that are challenging yet fair. It also inspires us to develop new mechanics that can offer even deeper and more complex gaming experiences,” adds Sander. “It’s always fascinating to see how creative and strategic players can be!”
That makes Candy Crush All-Stars a truly unique tournament, taking a game enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people – at many different levels – and turning it into a competition at an incredibly high level. For Chin – who says he can’t pinpoint the moment he realized he was playing at an elite level – it was a revelation:
“Personally, I’ve always been a pretty competitive player, even with other games. And originally Candy Crush was kind of my pastime until the opportunity came up to come here and compete. It was a lot of fun and very exciting to put so much time and effort into it and to be able to play against other people who are similarly good. And I think that excitement was what really set the game apart from just casual gaming.”
It was a big moment for Chin, who can now call himself the greatest player in the world. Candy Crush Player: “It was an overwhelming feeling at first just to be up there and even be considered one of the top ten in the world. I felt so honored to be among them and interact with all of them. We all have the passion to play Candy Crush together, and the bond we were able to build through that was absolutely incredible.”
