Inside audio design at Candy Crush maker King

• King is bringing new accessibility features to its portfolio aiming to set a new standard in mobile games.
• Candy Crush Saga’s latest event was Music Season offering prizes to players to attend real world concerts.

Swedish developer King needs very little introduction. The free-to-play model changed much of the games industry, with mobile leading the way in its creation.

The company was right there at the beginning with the release of Candy Crush Saga. After 12 years on mobile, not only is it still King’s flagship title, but it remains one of the world's most successful games.

Of course, since then King has expanded on its Candy Crush franchise with the likes of Soda Saga, Jelly Saga and Jelly Saga. It also has other titles in its portfolio, including Farm Heroes Saga and Pet Rescue Saga. 

Development across the King portfolio makes for busy work, and one thing each of these games needs is great audio design. Leading the charge on this is head of audio Dominique Devoucoux, who was recently a finalist for the Women in Games Award for Creative Impact. 

Audio in games

Devoucoux started her career in advertising before moving into the film business. However, shortly after this, the opportunity to work with EA on the Need for Speed franchise arose, marking the beginning of a career in games. 

“I really loved the process of bringing a renewed soundtrack to the Need for Speed franchise, but eventually, my predecessor here at King was looking to expand the audio team to make it more of a focal point in the game development process. So I initially joined as an audio producer,” says Devoucoux. 

Not long after joining King, the opportunity to become head of audio came up. Devoucoux says the position is “really varied” since the audio team services King’s entire portfolio of games, although much of the focus is on three of King’s iconic games: Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, and Farm Heroes Saga.

Devoucoux shares that while the audio team is small, they are incredibly collaborative and work across a variety of locations including London, Stockholm, Berlin, and Barcelona.

“The team is kept very busy, but equally, that is very exciting,” says Devoucoux. “I love the fact that we’re involved in the audio development across a range of titles, it expands our horizons and challenges us.

"Our goal is to encourage the game developers to bring our expertise in early during the development process so we can influence how features are recreated with audio in mind.”

Mobile games can have a lower focus on audio than other platforms since many titles are played on the go and in conditions where the player may turn off audio completely. Devoucoux says King has an ambition to change this as the team aims to enhance the audience experience across its portfolio. 

“Audio has been our passion and role for a long time, so now it’s about taking others on the journey to help unlock further innovation, not just at King but across the broader industry," she says.

Music collaboration 

King has previously collaborated with the Jonas Brothers and Meghan Trainor in musical events. Recently, Candy Crush Saga launched its third annual Music Season tournament, which includes a series of artist collaborations and real-life music-themed prizes.

This year's Music Season also features a unique prize: the ‘sweet sound passport’, an exclusive reward that grants the top 10 players tickets to three concerts of their choice almost anywhere in the world. 

“We know lots of our players have a real affinity with music, so we have been looking at fun and surprising ways to integrate this as part of our audio strategy,” says Devoucoux, “One of our key objectives for Candy Crush Saga is to deliver these types of sweet surprises to our players.” 

This year, the Music Season event has teamed up with artists such as Kimbra, TOKiMONSTA, and Laszewo to release three new tracks inspired by Candy Crush Saga’s sounds. Each track has been accompanied by a music video and is also available in-game.

“We’ve seen lots of success with these types of activations within Candy Crush Saga in recent years, where we have taken more of a test-and-learn approach," explains Devoucoux.

"This activation marks a more strategic step into establishing Candy Crush Saga in the music space. Activations Such as this are ways of making music and audio feel not just complementary but additive to the game experience, and it’s something we’ll continue to explore in the future.”

The impact of audio

When it comes to audio design, King does most of its work in-house, which Devoucoux says is particularly true when the team is looking to revamp or refresh the sound effects in King’s portfolio.

“We have versatile and classically trained composers and the ability to develop tracks with virtual instruments and sample libraries," she states.

However, Devoucoux also shares that as a team, they are always looking at ways to take audio to the next level as there is constant competition for people’s attention, be that other games or across other entertainment platforms. 

“It's important we continue to challenge ourselves to create the best possible experiences for our players," says Devoucoux. "We take a lot of inspiration from processes in the film industry, which isn’t typical in mobile games.

“Sometimes it may mean recording live at a big studio with musicians, a conductor and an orchestra. We don’t think of it as creating audio just for a mobile game. Often, the life of our work can extend well beyond the game itself and onto other formats like TV campaigns or those launched through Spotify.”

Bringing the audio team closer to other aspects of development means that the audio team can have a closer relationship to a game's production and also enables the team to have a more direct impact on the player experience.

"There is increasing recognition around the value and opportunity for audio design, particularly in mobile games, and it is part of my role to advocate for that event more,” Devoucoux shares. 

“While I do think there is still some way to go for game audio to reach its full potential and recognition, things are changing, and that makes me excited for the future.” 

The future of audio in mobile games

One evolving technology that is integrating its way into various aspects of game design is artificial intelligence, from animation platforms such as Runway to Ludio.ai’s ability to analyse player behaviour. Devoucoux says that while the emergence of new technologies like generative AI is “interesting and impressive”, there are still many limitations. 

“From an audio perspective, if you have experimented with some of the current AI tools, you’ll see there are still a lot of limitations," she explains.

"There are also questions about the ownership of a piece of AI-generated music and the risk that this technology could further standardise production techniques and make the music landscape even less compelling and daring compared to what was available in the past.” 

Devoucoux notes, however, that King is still “looking to remain at the forefront of innovation” and that the industry must “strike the right balance”. 

One area King is also looking to innovate is in audio accessibility on mobile. Accessibility options have become far more prominent in games in recent years, enabling more people to enjoy games with less difficulties. However, mobile is an area that has fewer of these options, particularly in the audio department.

This is something King aims to change. "We believe accessibility is another differentiator here at King, and part of our focus is to make our games more inclusive,” says Devoucoux. “When you look at other mobile games you may see options to turn music and sound effects off, but we wanted to take that a step further and push our innovation beyond the industry norm.”

These innovations have led to the development of the ‘audio accessibility panel’ in Candy Crush Soda Saga, which launched on Accessibility Day back in May. The new menu enables players to adjust audio settings with “unprecedented granularity", including volume sliders for music and sound, and forced mono sound for those with hearing impairments. 

King also introduced sliders for high and low frequencies, which allow players to customise their audio experiences to suit their specific needs. 

“We wanted to ensure that these features genuinely enhance the experience for those with accessibility needs, so we worked with a group of accessibility ambassadors to help inform them of the development process," says Devoucoux.

"It’s a project we’re proud of and something we will continue to look at as part of our broader development strategy across titles.”

King’s ambitions

While King's key titles have been live for years, Devoucoux says it still looks to keep things fresh. One project she comments as being particularly proud of was the soundscape refresh of Candy Crush Saga in 2022.

“It was the first time the music had been changed since its launch, and we took the opportunity to produce new music like we were producing for film,” she shares. Devoucoux goes on to say that the soundtrack took a year to complete from its concept to release, and the team worked with 57 live musicians during the process at the famous Abbey Road studios in London.

“We really saw the project as raising the standard of mobile game audio. It’s not something everyone gets the opportunity to do when working on a mobile game, so it was very special and a big highlight for me.”

Devoucoux says that opportunities such as this help elevate King’s long-standing games and that there are further opportunities to enhance King’s portfolio of games and bring new experiences to players. 

“I’d also like us to continue to expand our technological capabilities. We know that other types of games, like triple-A titles, use a larger suite of tools. Not all of those would be relevant to a mobile game, but it would be great to see which best practices we could apply,” says Devoucoux.

“What we have achieved over the past few years is just the starting point, we want to keep people excited and to see the art of what is possible”.