Millions of players are hopelessly addicted to Candy Crush Saga, which is available on not only iOS and Android devices, but also Facebook. As it turns out, King plans to expand its growing portfolio even further by releasing Pet Rescue Saga on smartphones and tablets. Currently available free-of-charge on Facebook, this browser-based effort retains features that make Candy Crush so appealing, but what is it, and why should you care? If you play Candy Crush Saga on a daily basis, perhaps you shouldn't read this.
Pet Rescue Saga is a puzzle game that takes place in a fictitious cartoon world. Each stage (similar Candy Crush) asks you to complete a specific task, except instead of eliminating jelly from the screen or moving ingredients, you destroy multi-colored blocks to help 10 cute and cuddly animals reach an exit, among other objectives.
You do this by simply grouping blocks of the same color and then clicking to make them disappear. Without the help of boosters (the pickaxe, for instance), you can only blow up groups of two or more, so your primary goal will usually involve gathering as many blue, purple and green boxes together to achieve the highest score.
Like Candy Crush, you're free to play Pet Rescue Saga without spending a dime, though King intentionally baked different boosters into the experience that you can only acquire via in-app purchase. This should sound familiar.
You'll also notice that the game's creators champion the use of social features. As such, you'll be able to view online leaderboards to compare scores, and the game always informs you when you've beaten someone on a specific level.
Considering this title has six million daily active users on Facebook alone, there's a lot of potential for Pet Rescue Saga to find great success on mobile, which is just what we need, another time-consuming puzzler to drive us nuts. Of course, if it's even half as compelling as Candy Crush, resistance will be futile.
Look for Pet Rescue Saga this summer.
