GameCentral AMA: David Darabian, Candy Crush game designer, answers your questions

A mobile gaming icon takes your questions (Picture: Candy Crush/David Darabian)

For our first ever GameCentral Ask Me Anything feature, we’ve put your questions to a genuine mobile gaming legend.

David Darabian first hit the big-time with Planeto Quiz, ‘the world’s first massively multiplayer online quiz’, mixing RPG elements with a love of classic trivia.

After that he hopped casually to work on one of the most iconic games ever to hit mobiles: Candy Crush. Not only did David design and tweak levels for the OG incarnation of the game, he also worked on Candy Crush Jelly and brought Candy Crush Soda all the way from early concept to release.

His work since then has been no less illustrious. David worked with a small indie company to develop Blastlands, an action packed indie multiplayer. Then it was time for a move to Matchington Mansion, another puzzle led adventure for the ages.

He takes us through his illustrious career, and answers questions from GameCentral readers.

Were you interested in gaming as a child?

Yeah I was. I did play a lot of Nintendo – that was my console. It inspired my love of mobile games because they did so much within the limitations that they had.

I liked games like Super Mario Kart, like most people did. I liked the simplicity of it.

Did you like to invent games or puzzles?

Yeah! I drew maps and even made some early game designs, if they could be called that. Imagining games and how they should be played. Like most kids I wrote comics, as well. I drew a lot, and liked to use my imagination.

So how did you go from childhood drawings to working in the industry?

I always knew I wanted to work in games, but there wasn’t much available education on it. There weren’t any courses in game design, as far as I knew at least.

So I started off trying to become a programmer, but that wasn’t really for me. I finally did find a game design course and got accepted onto it. I found out really fast that this is what I was looking for.

David thinks that small teams work best (Picture: David Darabian)

I wouldn’t actually call myself a gamer but I’m very interested in creating games, and understanding what they feel like for players. I’m the same with movies and books – I find it satisfying working out what appeals to viewers and readers.

I follow a lot of Facebook groups to see what gamers are thinking about games. It’s a door into an uncensored audience, who aren’t trying to please you and say what they really think.

Has gamer feedback changed your designs for a game?

Yeah, definitely. I think it’s one of the reasons I was hired by King – I highlighted the importance of testing a lot, they didn’t do a lot of that previously.

Sometimes gamers say stuff to please you, so you need to ask good questions and watch them actually playing, without commenting on how they’re playing. Then you start noticing all the difficulties they might be having.

People on Facebook can also complain about different levels, and then we tweak those based on these comments.

How do you tell if a level is too difficult?

Well we keep a big overview, and use screenshots to compare new levels with previous ones, changing layouts and other things based on this.

When you’ve designed a level, you test it on yourself and your colleagues. At King, we used to have a session every week where we all played each other’s levels. This helps you to spot difficulties that you haven’t noticed before, because everyone plays differently.

Every level we launched had been tested. I don’t know if that’s still the case now.

Can you tell if a game is going to be a big success?

Yeah I think I can. If a game is too similar to a competitor then you don’t give a gamer a good reason to change they game they’re playing. Following a benchmark is quite risky, in my opinion, and not very smart.

You have to do something different, but know the audience.

Candy Crush hit on the perfect winning formula (Picture: Candy Crush/David Darabian)

So why do you think Candy Crush was such a success?

Well timing definitely, but also theme. A lot of people miss the important of theme.

With candy, you can do anything. People recognise certain candies and enjoy it. There was an Australian lady who loved the fact that soda was like Ribena. And then we had the Swedish Fish, which was very popular here in Sweden.

With Royal Match, they used humour well. There was the medieval theme, but the theme was really humour.

If a game takes off and is a huge success, do you earn more money?

No – I wish! I don’t earn more but of course I feel proud. Shortly after we launched Candy Crush Soda, me and my wife went to Malaysia. When we landed in Kuala Lumpur, the first thing we heard in the airport was the sound of the fish.

That was pretty cool, because when you develop a game you’re in a small bubble and you don’t realise how big it’s going to be until you’re on the other side of the world and you hear the sounds you helped to create.

The bigger the company, the lesser the pressure, says David (Picture: David Darabian)

Is there a lot more pressure when you work at a big company?

No, I don’t think so. To me it has been the opposite. You pressurise yourself, and I’ve always striven to work as hard as possible, so that’s on me.

When you’re at a smaller company, you’re a bigger part of the machine, you have more responsibilities, and that to me is more pressure.

I’ve never felt stress because I like doing it. I feel fortunate to be doing it, so it hasn’t been a problem.

How have your onboarding processes changed? How do you get a player hooked?

Well the onboarding should be fun and engaging. When you have tutorials, people who are familiar with the game find them boring – and they are, quite honestly!

But it’s a balance, because when you introduce something new, the level needs to be easy – otherwise the player is discouraged from playing. But at the same time, it needs to be fun. A lot of game companies focus too much on keeping things easy.

We had a long discussion about them at King, and whether we need them – but in the end they are a necessary evil.

Are there any genres you’d still like to work in?

I do like the Match 3 genre – I know the audience well and the next steps for where it’s going. If I was doing something else, then I’d look at something like Overcooked, but for mobile. Smaller games where if you add something to it then you expand it quite a lot, are quite interesting because they can provide so much fun for relatively little cost.

David and his colleagues would play each other’s levels at King (Picture: Candy Crush/David Darabian)

Would you be interesting in working on other consoles?

Yes, definitely. It’s not about about the company, it’s about the game. I know a lot of people are fascinated by Nintendo, and for good reason. But I wouldn’t join them just for the sake of it – there would need to be a good game.

More: Trending

Are you worried about big gaming takeovers?

I haven’t thought a lot about that. But I’ve seen a trend: the bigger a company gets, eventually it will implode. In a way it’s healthy, because I don’t think it’s a good strategy to devour company after company.

When I’ve been on small teams, maybe of 20 people or so, that’s when communication worked really well. The more we grew, the worse communication was, and we got disconnected from the game and became unmotivated. I think that’s the reason why people leave.

What games are you playing at the moment and really enjoying?

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, for the 3DS. It’s a good example of how a sequel should be made. They used everything people recognised but added a twist, using the features of the 3DS in a really good way.

I also loved Journey, a great game. And Ni no Kuni It’s quirky, with a great story and a lot of polish.

The Match 3 game I’d recommend is Garden Affairs. The most recent one, Rose’s Adventure, has better levels than other games, and they don’t have the same problems that other games have.

Finally, what’s your Desert Island Game?

Can I play with others in some kind of way.

Go on then, but you can’t chat with them…

I’ll say the balloon race from Mario Kart from the Super Nintendo.

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A mobile gaming legend takes your questions.