How many levels to Candy Crush? Step inside the endlessly compelling colorful grid
Candy Crush Saga, a free-to-play puzzle game, has been a mainstay in its genre since its release in 2012. It began as a Facebook game and expanded into a $20 billion empire with multiple other games over the past 12 years.
Outside Facebook, the Candy Crush Saga app is available on Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft devices. It has been downloaded more than 5 billion times and maintains more than 200 million users a month worldwide.
Its widespread popularity spawned a tournament − the Candy Crush All Stars Championship, the world's largest casual mobile gaming tournament. The tournament, now in its fourth year, this year featured 10 top players who competed in person for a $1 million prize pool and a championship ring.
What is Candy Crush?
Candy Crush Saga is a "match three" game, which means players start with a grid of differently colored tiles, designated by candies. Players slide fruits horizontally and vertically until landing on a line of three or more candies to "clear" them from the grid.
How many levels are in Candy Crush?
Players progress through levels in the game, each with unique objectives that become slightly more challenging over time. Players might need to achieve a certain number of points, collect specific fruits or avoid bad fruits to reach the next level. There are now more than 16,000 levels.
Though the game is free to play, it operates on a "freemium model," meaning players can pay for in-app purchases within the game. For example, players start out with a certain number of "lives" in the game that refresh over time, but if a player runs out of lives and wants to keep playing, they can pay real money to buy more.
What is the Candy Crush All Stars Championship?
The championship event began four years ago as an online event to give Candy Crush players a more competitive experience. Last year, it had its first in-person event, and the prize pool was $250,000.
The winner of this year's tournament was Ben C, 23, of Brunswick, Ohio, who competed while recovering from surgery. He took home $500,000, and the other finalists − Suzanne S, of Stockholm, and Verissa T, of Atlanta − finished second and third, taking home $250,000 and $100,000.
The tournament starts with a qualifier period of about four weeks, where any player can enter free through the app and play to collect certain All Stars candies. More than 15 million people played in this year's contest, and the top 10 scoring players were flown to Los Angeles to compete in the in-person sector of the tournament.
"We listened to players, and some of them were very clear saying like, "Hey, we'd love to have a more competitive aspect in Candy." So we decided to call the event All Stars with the intention that everybody could play and compete," said Luken Aragon, head of marketing for King, Candy Crush's parent company.
How did Candy Crush get so popular?
There have been many cultural giants in the mobile casual gaming genre over the years, like Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds and Subway Surfers. But unlike those games, Candy Crush still tops casual-gaming charts despite being released 12 years ago.
"I think what Candy Crush managed to do differently is create a long-term experience engaging millions of players," Aragon said.
Candy Crush is currently ranked in the top 20 casual games in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The Entertainment Software Association reported that it's the second-top-grossing mobile game after MONOPOLY GO! in 2024.
One of the reasons is that the game is appealing − perhaps addictive − across demographics. In the past year alone, a Catholic priest was arrested for spending church money on the game, and rapper Young Thug's loved ones said he plays the game every day while in jail. Even Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she had reached a level over 6,100 in Candy Crush in January.
"It started with a vision that was very much focusing on making the world playful," Aragon said. "Every year we're working hard to continue to surprise our players."