Sweet Crush All-Stars is the world’s greatest event for King’s Sweet Crush Saga. In its fourth iteration, and its greatest so far, this months-long occasion gives a $1 million prize pool to the sport’s most elite gamers. However, it’s possible you’ll be questioning, how does somebody grow to be a top-level Sweet Crush participant? And the way do you construct a event to assist them show that?
With the occasion coming to an in depth final week, we caught up with a few of Sweet Crush’s degree designers, in addition to Ben Chin, who took on over 15 million opponents to grow to be Sweet Crush All-Stars 2024’s total winner. Collectively, they gave us a way of how one of many world’s greatest informal video games, open to anybody, can supply a problem befitting of that million-dollar prize pool.
For Chin, there are some key expertise you could attain the highest degree: “You positively want tenacity and endurance. Getting by the completely different phases main as much as the All Stars finals, it requires a variety of effort and time for positive – particularly when you get to these ultimate knockout phases. The final spherical is 24 hours, and that’s all you might have. So you really want to have the ability to go the space and be capable to pull it out during.”
From a design perspective, the usual of the gamers concerned meant the staff wanted to create one thing that feels acquainted, however with a brand new degree of problem, befitting of the ten gamers who made it during to the grand ultimate.
![](https://xxboxnews.blob.core.windows.net/prod/sites/2/2024/06/DSC_4583-31a88ad4ac7604c7e6a7.jpg)
“Our inspiration for the All Stars Stay Ultimate got here from a need to create one thing that each honored the basic components of Sweet Crush Saga and launched new, thrilling challenges for our finalists,” explains Lead Stage Designer, Therese Sander.
“We needed to rejoice the journey gamers have taken with us by providing ranges which are visually interesting, however mechanically intriguing,” added Stage Designer Oksana Samsonova. “We’ve created 9 customized ranges for our finalists [with] varied challenges – completely different modes, the most recent sport mechanics and replicas of some iconic ranges from the sport.”
These 9 ranges required a novel design transient – the staff wanted to create phases that labored with out the standard sport financial system and boosters that gamers have obtainable, and each wanted to really feel completely distinct, forcing new approaches out of the finalists with every new degree. By means of intensive guide testing on the staff, the extent designers emerged with a set of phases that demanded the finalists refine their strategy:
“I really employed a number of completely different methods all through the course of the event in addition to within the finals” says Chin. “These issues included simply being very sensible about how you employ your strikes – when it’s correct to get by a degree as shortly as attainable versus sticking round a degree for so long as attainable simply to maximise what number of factors you really earn per degree.”
![](https://xxboxnews.blob.core.windows.net/prod/sites/2/2024/06/IMG_0009-c40fc040008ee7ed3dae.jpg)
In a method, the finals act as a ‘battle’ between the extent designers and the gamers themselves. With elite gamers taking over the problem, the designers are free to create ranges which may not really feel fairly as approachable in case you got here throughout them within the common sport.
“Whereas the core sport regularly will increase in complexity, event ranges are designed to problem gamers’ superior expertise proper from the beginning,” says Sander. “This implies incorporating extra advanced mechanics, requiring faster pondering, and sometimes demanding the next degree of strategic planning. We intention to create ranges that push gamers to make use of every thing they’ve realized within the sport thus far and suppose creatively to beat new obstacles.”
That complexity meant that Chin needed to up his sport, even from his personal excessive requirements: “When it got here to the aggressive nature of it, you actually have to have a look, observe the extent and, actually establish, ‘OK, I’ve a restricted set of time and strikes and completely different goals. I’ve received blockers in my method. What are the blockers?’ I’ve by no means deliberate greater than on this event. I feel that’s going to hold over into the way forward for me taking part in this sport.”
That’s precisely the aim for the designers: “Probably the most rewarding half is seeing the enjoyment and pleasure gamers expertise after they play the degrees. Watching gamers uncover new methods, overcome challenges, and share their experiences is extremely fulfilling,” says Samsonova.
And in flip, watching the sport’s greatest gamers tackle their ranges ought to result in much more thrilling designs later: “Watching elite-level gamers sort out our phases has been extremely insightful,” Samsonova continues. “These gamers usually make use of methods and methods that we hadn’t anticipated, showcasing the depth and potential of our sport mechanics.”
![](https://xxboxnews.blob.core.windows.net/prod/sites/2/2024/06/DSC_4579-d0e4cc709a6dd2c49974.jpg)
“Observing their gameplay helps us perceive how you can design ranges which are difficult but truthful, and it additionally evokes us to create new mechanics that may present even deeper and extra advanced gameplay experiences,” provides Sander. “It’s at all times fascinating to see how artistic and strategic gamers will be!”
It makes Sweet Crush All-Stars a very distinctive event, elevating a sport loved by a whole lot of hundreds of thousands – at many talent ranges – into one thing aggressive at an extremely excessive customary. For Chin – who says he can’t pinpoint the second he realized he was taking part in at an elite degree – it’s been a revelation:
“For me personally, I’ve at all times been a fairly aggressive gamer, amongst different video games as properly. And initially for Sweet Crush, it was type of my time-killer sport till the opportunity of popping out right here to compete was obtainable. With the ability to simply put on a regular basis and energy into it, and with the ability to play towards different people who find themselves equally pretty much as good as one another, it was a variety of enjoyable and it was very thrilling. And I feel that pleasure was actually what units that other than simply taking part in casually.”
It’s been a banner second for Chin, who can now name himself the world’s biggest Sweet Crush participant: “It was such an awesome feeling at first simply to be up there and even thought of one of many high ten on the planet. I used to be so honoured to be amongst them and work together with all of them. All of us have the eagerness of taking part in Sweet Crush collectively, and with the ability to bond over that was completely unimaginable.”