Overview
Candy Box is a game of discovery, created as the first major title of the French indie developer aniwey. Using a minimalist ASCII aesthetic presented in a browser window, Candy Box slowly reveals itself to be more than meets the eye. It's available to play here.
The element of surprise is important to much of the game's appeal, and it serves both as a real RPG and a parody of many RPG and wider gaming conventions, similar to other discovery and parody titles such as Frog Fractions and Progress Quest.
Gameplay
A simple display of increasing candies and text gives way to a surprisingly deep RPG, including shops, quests, side quests, and substantial boss battles. As the game deepens, there is a greater focus on time, with the player required to wait for cooldowns on quests and resources to build up for purchasing much-needed items and abilities. Since it is a browser game, it is easy to just leave on in the background, allowing it some similarity with online social games, and this makes it especially addictive for players who will leave the game open for days on end just to get the next best sword to defeat the next big obstacle.
Alongside traditional RPG elements of shopping and quests, the game also presents the player with many puzzles which take advantage of its relative simplicity to make the player think about each element of the experience that can be manipulated to pass seemingly impossible or random problems and enemies.
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