User:B-RexTheT-Rex04/sandbox

Candy Wars is a 2020 action fantasy role-playing game developed by BC Games and Adamant Games and published by Bombastic Creations. It was released on April 20, 2020 for Xbox One and PC through the Epic Games Store distribution service as well as the Microsoft Store, with ports for PS4 and Nintendo Switch released on August 3, 2020. Plans have been announced to launch the game on next-gen consoles in the near future. Candy Wars is set on a fictional coastal continent called Candaria, which is loosely based on parts of Australia. The game does not feature online multiplayer, although an online supplement game called Candy Wars Online will be released on April 20, 2021.

Gameplay
Gameplay is experienced from a third-person perspective. Players take on the role of a Sourman (similar to the Sour Patch Kid candy), and fight to take back his or her kingdom from the evil Chewy Bear Empire. The game has an extreme focus on questing, as well as the option to postpone the main questline indefinitely. Boss battles make up the majority of the game, with any missions not culminating in a boss battle ending with a 3-wave survival standoff. BC Games claims the main questline will take at least 40 hours (without dying) to complete, whether this be spent on battle missions or the up-to-an-hour-long Journey missions, involving players conquering a dungeon area with AI companions to assist them in finding an object that continues the main questline before the timer runs out. There are 5 Journeys in the game. Failure to reach the objective before the hour is up results in the mission locking for an hour and having to complete the mission again.

Character progression
Candy Wars includes an XP-based progression system. Characters progress by killing bosses and minions, as well as completing quests for their respective character Class. Quests are obtained from Vendors, NPCs (non-player characters) found in Villages and Cities. Vendors are only obtained after gaining Trust Points with vendors to level up your Trust Rank, which identifies how much NPCs trust you to do certain tasks.

Classes
Candy Wars contains three character classes: Diplomat, Citizen, and Soldier. The Citizen class is given to all player profiles and does not have associated quests. The Soldier and Diplomat classes require certain Attributes, titles that buff and debuff certain Power Levels of a character. The Soldier has the most side quests, with several seek-and-destroy, reconnaissance, hostage rescue, etc. quests available. The Diplomat has fewer questlines, which include negotiation and territorial conquest missions, but contains more dialogue options than the Soldier class.

Modes
Candy Wars doesn’t have modes per se, but it has several different Perks and Difficulty Levels. Perks are corresponding to the class the player selects, be it Diplomat or Soldier. The Negotiator Perk corresponds to the Diplomat class, and this gives the player certain dialogue options that are different from a Soldier class.. The Hunter Perk corresponds to the Soldier class, giving the Soldier the ability to double their attack stats for 1 hour until it takes a 3-hour recharge. The dialogue lines also are different from the Diplomat lines. Players can also kill and attack innocent civilians. This, of course, summons in-game guard enemies, and a player’s Trust Rank with certain races changes. Difficulty Levels determine the amount of difficulty the game has. There are three difficulty levels: Normal, Veteran, and Legend. These difficulty levels also determine how long it takes to advance levels and progression.

Setting
Candy Wars takes place on the continent of Candaria, which is loosely based on parts of Australia. The game begins with a cutscene narrated by co-creator Mason Turcotte, describing the current conflict between the Sourmen and the Chewy Bears. The Chewy Bears have completely obliterated the Sourmen’s home territory, besides a few soldiers struggling to survive. The Caramel Kingdom welcomes the battered Sourmen, giving them new weapons and armor. The game includes medieval themes.

Synopsis
When the game begins, the Caramel capital city is being attacked by ravagers, pirates and scoundrels who deliver their plunder to the Chewy Bears in exchange for food and protection. The player character wakes up in a military barracks, suits up, and defeats 3 waves of ravagers. After the battle, King Caramel promotes the player to the rank of Corporal, and begins to send them out on missions. The first mission involves a reconnaissance of the neighbors to the north, the Twisters. The Twisters resemble Twizzlers, and have ranged and trap attacks. It is revealed during the recon of the Chewy Bear outpost in the Twister Kingdom that the Chewy Bears have secretly taken control of all the kingdoms of Candaria.

While the Caramels recoil to fight their own battles against their rivals, the Milk and Dark Chocolates, the Sourmen head out into the land, defeating numerous agents of the Candarian kingdoms, as well as the different factions of Chewy Bears stationed throughout the land. The game culminates with a final raid on the Chewy Bear Castle in the Sourmen’s home city. The characters defeat the Chewy Bear King, and balance is slowly restored to Candaria. The downloadable expansions expand on this plot as well, with new questlines and races added to the game.

Development
Development for Candy Wars began in 2016 when creators Mason Turcotte and Brad Bennett drafted the first storyboard for the game. The game was revealed at The Game Developers Conference 2017 with the name Heroes of Candaria, but was renamed Candy Wars shortly thereafter. Turcotte left the project briefly in 2018, but returned in mid-2019 to assist with the development of the game through his company Adamant Games.

Technology
Candy Wars utilizes Unreal Engine 4, though BC Games has stated that the game will be ported to Unreal Engine 5 for release on next-gen consoles. The game allows 4K 60fps gaming on Xbox One X and PC, with the PS4 release clocked in at approximately 4k 30fps and the Nintendo Switch release maintaining 1080p 30fps in TV Mode. The Xbox Series X and PS5 releases will include realistic ray-tracing, environmental physics, and 8K capability as well as fully voiced dialogue. These versions will also render at 4K 120fps. The game world is entirely handcrafted. The Xbox Series S version will include these features, but without the 8K capabilities and will render at 1440p 120fps.

Design
Mason Turcotte and Brad Bennett drafted the story in mid-2016 and came to a final draft after the GDC 2017 announcement. Bennett has cited influences as The Elder Scrolls and the Fallout series of games. The only voice lines are in the opening narration to the game and story-driven cutscenes. Bennett cites the lack of voice lines during gameplay as a throwback to late ‘90s and early-2000s RPGs.

Release
The official unveiling of Candy Wars came at The Game Developers Conference 2017. The game was slated for a 2019 release, but BC Games pushed the release back to 2020 after several beta testers uncovered game-breaking bugs. On April 4, 2020, BC Games announced that Limited Run had picked up the distribution rights to the game. Players who pre-ordered the Day One edition of the game received a hoodie and controller skin themed to Candy Wars. PC users who pre-ordered the game received a coffee mug and Candy Wars mousepad. Limited Run Games released an Xbox One retail version of Candy Wars on April 22, 2020, however, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the retail versions were only sold in the United States in limited stores. Bombastic Creations launched Candy Wars on PS4 and Switch on August 3, 2020. The Xbox Series X|S and PS5 versions will release in 2021.

Critical reception
Candy Wars received mixed reviews upon release. GameSpot praised the depth and breadth of the campaign missions, especially for BC Games’ first release. IGN called the game, “A nice throwback to RPGs of days gone by.” Review aggregator Metacritic gave Candy Wars a 67/100 for the PC version based on 11 reviews and a 63/100 for the Xbox One version based on 24 reviews. The Verge criticized the game for being, “too bland to be called an RPG. There is way too much grinding and the Journey missions seem like filler to make the game continue to drag on.”

The game was criticized for being too long, as well as the predictable story and lack of voice acting. GamesRadar+ said about the voice acting, “Even though BC Games claims for Candy Wars to be a throwback to older RPGs, in the new decade, no one wants to read subtitles, and we all know it was primarily budgetary reasons that the voice acting was cut out.” Shortly after the review was published, BC Games pinned a screenshot of this passage in the GamesRadar+ review on the BC Games Twitter page and captioned it, “Someone sure is perceptive.” This caused media backlash on BC Games for allowing their social media accounts to forward this type of speech. The BC Games Twitter eventually deleted the post, and GamesRadar+ edited this portion out of their review.

Sales
BC Games claimed that Candy Wars made $1 million in the first week of launch, while also declining to give sales figures on launch day. The game’s primary platform has been PC, with the majority of downloads coming from Epic's storefront webpage. The game was released as a timed Xbox One exclusive. It was also included with Xbox Game Pass at launch and was released as a free game through Epic on August 4-8, 2020. Candy Wars was confirmed on March 3, 2021 to have sold 15 million copies, with an additional 6 million downloads through Xbox Game Pass and 10 million redemptions through Epic Games Store.

Post-release Content
BC Games has stated that there will be post-release content, whether it be small updates to game mechanics, or full expansions dedicated to expanding the story. The first expansion, Wolfsbane, was announced on March 3, 2021 at the BC Games Showcase and was given a release date of April 20, 2021. The second expansion, entitled Hero's End, was given a release window of Fall 2021. Both of these expansions are included in the Year 2 Pass and Xbox Game Pass members can play an exclusive demo of the Wolfsbane expansion starting March 29, 2021. These expansions are also included in the Candy Wars Complete Edition, which also includes an Xbox-exclusive skin pack, access to the Candy Wars Online Season Pass (depending on the Season), and a beta key for Project Knight. The beta will only be available on PC.

Wolfsbane
Candy Wars: Wolfsbane is the first expansion pack for Candy Wars. It includes an all-new questline, 25 side quests, an updated inventory system, and new skill tree abilities. The product Wolfsbane becomes an obtainable material, and it can be used in potions and arrows. The main questline covers the story of the events leading up to the and during the One-Week Corvelian War, and how the Chewy Bears used Wolfsbane to mutate themselves into Mega-Bears, unstoppable forces of evil that left unchecked can wreak havoc on the world.

Hero's End
Candy Wars: Hero's End is the second and final expansion pack for Candy Wars. It will be released alongside the Candy Wars Complete Edition in Fall 2021.