''Candy Box!'' is an incremental browser

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

. It was developed by a 19-year-old French student using the pseudonym "aniwey" and released in April 2013. ''Candy Box!'' is an

online text-based role-playing game An online text-based role playing game is a role-playing game played online using a solely text-based interface. Online text-based role playing games date to 1978, with the creation of ''MUD1'', which began the MUD heritage that culminates in to ...

and uses

ASCII art ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant chara ...

in lieu of traditional

artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

. A sequel, ''Candy Box 2'' was released on October 24, 2013.

Gameplay

The game revolves around candies, which players begin to receive, at a rate of one per second; however this number may increase with further gameplay. Gameplay appears very sparse initially, but options appear as the player performs actions. For example, candy can be eaten or used to purchase items. Players can eventually undertake quests and kill monsters in order to gain candy. By performing quests, the player obtains items which can be accessed in their inventory.

Development

''Candy Box!'' was developed over a period of two months by independent developer "aniwey", a 19-year-old student from

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

'' noted that "''Candy Box!s curious combination of ASCII 'graphics', role-playing elements and resource management has caught on with hundreds of thousands." According to ''

Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...

'', the "charming ASCII art style belies a very deep game that can quickly get addictive". ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games ma ...

'' editor Shaun Prescott found the game particularly addictive, describing it as "'' Cow Clicker'' as

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

." Justin Davis of ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

'' stated that, together with ''

A Dark Room ''A Dark Room'' is an open-source text-based role-playing game. It was originally published for web browsers by Canadian indie studio Doublespeak Games on June 10, 2013. Later that year, it was released in the App Store for iOS devices. In 2014 ...

'' and '' Cookie Clicker'', ''Candy Box!'' has become one of the most well-known incremental games.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

named ''Candy Box!'' number 21 of ''The 50 Best Free Games on PC'' in 2016.

Legacy

A sequel, titled ''Candy Box 2'', was released on October 24, 2013. The

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

of ''Candy Box 2'', written in TypeScript, was released under the

GPLv3 The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

. It received broad public reception and was recommended in a PC World review in October 2013 with the words "Play this right now".Play This Right Now: Candy Box 2
by Nate Ralph on Pcworld.com (Oct 24, 2013)

References

External links

*
''Candy Box''

''Candy Box 2''
{{Portal bar, Video games, Free and open-source software 2013 video games Browser games Cooking video games Free online games Indie video games Single-player video games Incremental games Video games about food and drink Video games developed in France Video games with textual graphics Open-source video games