How Much Does it Cost to Build an App Like Candy Crush?

Candy Crush and similar games offer inclusive and engaging experiences in today’s mobile gaming market. Almost everyone prefers and enjoys these games.

Players worldwide find puzzle games like Candy Crush incredible and appreciate their engaging gameplay.

With more than one million played levels, this exciting game is one of the most successful games ever. Businesses effectively benefit from this speciality in games.

Many game app developers now intend to create mobile game apps with similar features to make their business a success story.

In this blog, we will learn more about the Candy Crush game and discuss its features, development considerations, the cost of development, and more.

So, let’s get started!

Candy Crush Game: An Overview

A Candy Crush Game is a match-3 puzzle game where players swap candies on a grid.

The matched candies disappear, new candies drop from above to fill the gaps, and players earn points for each match, clearing the levels.

The game often includes unique challenges, such as clearing jelly blocks, achieving a target score, or completing the level within a limited number of moves.

This game has garnered immense craze from the younger demographics in the past decade.

Why is Making a Game App like Candy Crush Profitable For Your Business?

Before diving into this article, let’s learn why games like Candy Crush are profitable as mobile apps have various benefits for businesses in this era.

Let’s look at some of the market statistics that display how profitable a game app like Candy Crush is:

Candy Crush is the sixth leading-grossing mobile game of all time worldwide.

It made $857 million in 2020, a 15% rise year-on-year.

Overall, People have downloaded this game more than 2.7 billion times.

It produced $1.19 billion in 2020, presenting it as the third-biggest-grossing mobile game outside of China.

273 million people use this game once a month. MAUs rose in 2015 with 327 million users.

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Key features of the Candy Crush App

While Candy Crush is memorable for its addictive gameplay and colourful graphics, the success of this app can also be attributed to its different special features.

The features of this app align with the iOS and Android app development trends, including:

1. Thousands of Levels

With more than 8000 levels currently available, a wide variety of challenges await in the game for every player.

Starting from the classic match-three puzzle to those requiring more strategic thinking, there is never anything new and thrilling again.

2. In-game Boosters

Players earn or buy special candies and boosters to overcome tough levels. These boosters start from striped candies, which clear entire rows or columns, to bombs of colour, which remove all candies of a similar colour.

With such an array of boosters available, players can strategically use them to their advantage when beating even the toughest levels.

3. Social Integration

Even better, Players connect the game to Facebook to view friends’ progress on the leaderboard and challenge them to beat high scores.

Within the scope of advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing, these social features introduced a competitive factor to the game, which made it both more interesting and engaging.

4. Limited Lives System

This system limits the player’s lives, requiring them to either wait for replenishment or purchase additional lives.

This system urges players to strategize and manage their lives carefully to succeed in the game. However, players can choose to continue playing without waiting for their lives to replenish.

5. Engaging Storyline

The game has a simple but engaging storyline. Help the main character, Tiffi, navigate through the various levels and obstacles to reach her goal.

Each level represents a new challenge for Tiffi, whether it is about collecting ingredients or clearing jelly.

6. Colorful Graphics and Animations

Bright colours and playful animations make the game visually appealing and captivating.

From colourful candies to satisfying explosions when making matches, Bright graphics and animations create a fairy-tale setting and immerse players in a joyful gaming experience.

The attractiveness of the visuals calls for attention to detail, which enhances gameplay and keeps users hooked for hours of candy-crushing fun.

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What to Consider While Developing a Game App like Candy Crush?

If you’re going to create an app as successful as Candy Crush, you must pay closer attention to the details.

From graphics and UI/UX design trends to marketing and monetization – here’s a guide on developing a Candy Crush-like app.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Analyze Popular Games

The first step is to research and analyze other popular games. This helps you build a concept for the gameplay mechanics, design elements, and successful features within the industry.

2. Design

Designing an application both means its look and feel, as well as making it intuitive and user-friendly.

Design your app with bright colours, a clean layout, and an intuitive interface. Use straightforward controls to ensure smooth navigation through game levels and follow the best UI design principles.

3. Gameplay

At this point, you need to create the game mechanics. This can be tricky since it requires you to develop interesting yet challenging enough gameplay.

Make your Candy Crush-like app pop using classic elements from the original game.

The must-haves for any match-3 puzzle application will be match-3 puzzles, power-ups, and time-based levels.

4. Monetization

Now that you have a working prototype of your gaming app, it’s time to consider monetization.

You can easily monetize your app using in-app purchases or ads, both of which can give you a steady income and help you cover the costs associated with development, marketing, and maintenance.

You can also set up multiple levels of in-app purchases or ads. Each tier may offer the user different types of benefits.

5. Marketing

You should take advantage of other marketing channels to increase the visibility of your app and ensure it attracts new players.

Social media will give you many opportunities to promote your app and reach potential customers. You can use Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to convey messages in advertisements or by posting updates about the app.

You can also utilize SEO and other social media marketing strategies to make your application stand out among the expensive games available on Google App Store and App Store.

6. Features Choice for Your Application

Adding interesting features to your app will determine how long your users use it.

If you want to ensure that users return to your mobile game app and interact with it multiple times, you will have to give them more benefits and features to enhance their gaming activity.

7. Include Interesting Sound Effects and Graphics

The reason behind the success of the Candy Crush clone app is related to its animation, sound, effects, and graphics. These will keep focusing on the user’s attention in your app and motivate him to return more and more.

Pick and install amazing sounds and animations in your app so that they will create an amazing good image in the player’s mind.

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How to Develop a Game App Like Candy Crush—Step-by-Step Guide

We have arrived at the step where you will learn how to develop a game app like Candy Crush.

Here are a few fundamental stages that you should consider for your app to develop perfectly:

1. Identifying Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

While Candy Crush is attractive, creativity is key to success. You will want your game to make a sensational twist to buck the crowded market demand.

Refer to the image below to understand USP better:

Your USP will draw players in, whether through a unique mechanism, a fresh theme, or an engaging storyline. Guess what made Candy Crush unique at its launch and how you can offer something equally compelling.

It also aims to offer something standard yet renewed so that both Candy Crush fans and new players are attracted.

2. Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is part of the game development process. Research demographics- ageing, gender, and what appeals to gamers—so you can create a game that can relate to the right audience.

For instance, even though Candy Crush may have a wide demographic appeal, you would know that younger audiences prefer more vibrant graphics while older players like less time-consuming play.

You will use this information for your design and effective digital marketing trends.

3. Game Mechanics

Determine the core gameplay mechanics for your game: Sometimes challenging, but it should be both delightfully and challengingly fun.

Remember that some elements you build upon in creating your app might come straight from the original game.

The image below displays the concept of game mechanics in brief:

Will it be another match-three puzzle, or are you ready to venture into something new? Think about how these mechanics will evolve through levels and keep players interested.

4. Storyline and Theme Development

A good storyline and theme can transform your game from just any other puzzle to an immersive experience.

Select a theme resonating with your target audience: an impulsive candy world, a paranormal fantasy land, or a vibrant underwater kingdom.

Here are some key considerations:

The storyline does not need to be complicated; instead, it should offer context to the gameplay and motivate players to advance through levels to see what will happen next.

5. Integrate Social Media Channels

While developing a mobile game app, integrating social media channels will increase its reach. It will let users know about your app through their social media apps.

It will also create confidence in the users’ minds as they see the app on an honourable platform. You can also use AI in social media strategy to make this step more efficient.

6. Testing, Launch, Maintenance

After proper development and design, it’s time to test your game. You can use AI in a quality assurance approach to test it efficiently. After all bugs and issues have been rectified, your mobile game is all set to launch.

Maintaining your app’s updates is important to keep it popular after launch. People also enjoy playing fresh and creative games and getting updated periodically.

All of this adds to the cost of mobile app maintenance.

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How to Monetize a Candy Crush-Like App?

If you have developed a Candy Crush-like app, you must be looking for ways to generate revenue from it. Mobile gaming apps are famous and can earn serious money if developed well.

So, here are some ways to make money using a Candy Crush-like mobile game and some strategies for achieving optimum returns.

Here are some common ways below:

1. In-app Purchases

In-app purchases are one of the most common monetization methods for mobile games. With this strategy, players buy an item, such as having extra lives and power-ups, to supplement their gameplay.

This approach allows users to access content quickly without waiting for resource replenishment.

In-app purchases can also provide the player with exclusive material, such as levels or characters, unavailable through other means.

This option provides backend developers with a great chance to maximize their revenues by establishing a steady flow of income where users continue to buy items within their game.

2. Advertising

Other numerous monetization techniques include advertisements. Banners, interstitials, and videos are potential means of incorporation aside from social media marketing.

This approach allows developers to earn extra money from each user who watches a video ad or clicks a banner. The location of ads in the game has to be carefully considered so as not to interfere with the user’s experience.

Impressions can also be a source of additional income: with an impression-based ad model, developers are paid for each ad appearance within the app.

3. Subscription

Subscription models are another commonality among Candy Crush-like apps. Here, users are asked to pay a recurring fee to access more levels, characters, or items.

This kind of monetization strategy benefits especially those who develop a wide variety of content and can easily keep users engaged.

The trick to success when using this model is ensuring that the subscription fee offers enough value to make it worthwhile for users to pay.

4. In-game Events

This activity may incentivize services offered in a particular app, for example, additional levels, characters, power-ups, and more.

Developers can increase the time spent on an app and generate additional revenue by creating distinctive, engaging events for the players.

Events have to be planned so that users would want to buy commodities or subscriptions to get some form of reward.

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Choosing the Right Platform for a Mobile Gaming App

Just as selecting the right platform for your app can impact its gameplay and reach, it’s important to recognize parallels to the limitations of e-commerce

In short, choosing the wrong platform can limit your audience and growth potential.

Here, have a look at the platforms you put your game on:

1. iOS vs Android

Choosing the right platform significantly impacts gameplay and reach. For instance, iOS app development is considered to have greater revenue per user, while Android offers greater reach.

Developers can publish the game on both platforms to reach a wider audience, adapting to differences in development and monetization.

2. Cross-Platform Development

Go for Cross-platform app development tools like Unity or Unreal Engine or Flutter vs React Native to reach as many people as possible. They allow you to make one game that will run on consoles, PCs, and mobile devices.

3. Web vs Mobile

While mobile gaming is booming, web-based games are also in demand. A web version of your game can be useful as a demo or a portal to attract gamers who prefer their computers for playing games.

Compare the pros and cons of each before making the decision. Additionally, choose the best from the list of databases for web applications to enhance its functionality.

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What Other Features Could You Add to Your Candy Crush-Like Game App?

There are many other features that you could add to your game app, just like Candy Crush. The following are some of them below:

1. Discussions

This feature will tell you of new levels in Candy Crush, events, news, features, and even community feedback concerning the game. It is an interesting feature that lets you know anything regarding the game in one place.

2. Support

This is a must-include feature with online games like Candy Crush. It will help your players solve any problems they face within the game.

You should also provide the related articles for your players’ better understanding.

3. Contests

This is the feature that brings excitement to the mind of the player. By providing this feature, the player has to play some contests in which they can get the chance to win gold bars, community badges, and even money.

For this, you may have to integrate third-party apps like UPI payment app, Paypal, etc.

4. Helping Videos

With this feature, the player will receive instant help completing any game level by simply watching the video.

You may include this feature in your app development to help your users when they are stuck at any level of the game.

Another thing you can consider is including an AI photo and video editor in your game as a side quest to make it engaging for users.

5. King Community

This is perhaps the most fantastic feature Candy Crush has presented to its users.

Through this feature, you can meet or get hold of another player who plays other games developed by King. You can even converse directly with them through this feature.

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Factors Affecting the Development Cost of an App Like Candy Crush

Before getting down to business specifics, there is something that an application developer should know: it’s the cost of developing the app.

The cost of developing an app is usually determined based on various factors such as:

Project Complexity

How complex is your project? How many features and integrations will it include? Will you decide on payment gateway integration in the app or not? The more complex the project, the more costly it would be.

Platforms Targeted

Should the app be developed for Android and iOS or just one? The work effort can vary between platforms. Also, you must select the best app development software platform for a smooth development process.

Team Size

How many members do you have on the project? With a bigger team comes more cost.

Design Requirements

Should the app have an entirely new UI/UX designer roadmap or utilize existing UI/themes? Custom designs are likely to be more costly.

Development Timeline

How fast can the app be developed? Faster timelines tend to cost more.

Cost of Developing an App Like Candy Crush

The scope and complexity of the project determine the cost of creating a game like Candy Crush.

Generally, the app-making charges are between $10,000 and $50,000 or more to create a gaming app. However, apps like candy crush can cost even $30,000 to $100,00 or even more to develop.

This estimate includes costs of concept development, design, coding, testing and quality assurance, marketing, and distribution.

However, the development cost may vary depending on the factors mentioned above.

Additionally, here’s the breakdown of the cost of developing a game app just like Candy Crush below:

How Can Arramton Infotech Help You Develop an App like Candy Crush Game?

Arramton Infotech specializes in custom mobile app development, ensuring your game is specifically designed to engage and captivate your target audience.

Our expert developer will create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development to help you launch a basic version of your game quickly to test ideas and gather user feedback before full-scale development.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or wish to renovate an existing idea, you can connect with Arramton Infotech to create a feature-rich, visually appealing, and monetization-ready game.

Let us bring your vision to life with our advanced tools and innovative strategies.

Conclusion

It requires time and effort to create an application like Candy Crush, but to ensure the successful replication of this masterpiece, you will need the right design, gameplay, monetization, and marketing strategies.

Paying close attention to all these elements could make your app stand out from the competition and attract some new players.

With a little dedication and effort, you can create an amazing mobile app that millions worldwide will enjoy.

Hiring a professional iOS or Android app development company is essential for making changes to your app.

They help you create an amazing app that users will love. The skilled developers will create your game app in Unity and other frameworks to improve its functionality.

So, you can connect with us at Arramton Infotech and get game app development to on-demand app development services with top-quality features.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What programming language does Candy Crush use?

Ans. Candy Crush uses one of the best programming languages for app development: JAVA.

Q. How was Candy Crush developed?

Ans: The company was creating casual games, one hundred and fifty of them in the browser, before landing on Candy Crush.

Q. How long does it take to develop an app like Candy Crush?

Ans: The time it takes to develop the clone game may vary depending on its details. It generally depends on the app’s complexity, features, and other related factors.