Why so many of our games are built around a combo
A combo system turns a reflex game into a decision. Here is the design reasoning behind the scoring in games like Block Fall and Fruit Slice Rush.
Take a game where every action scores one point and the player has no decisions to make — only an optimal order of operations. Now add a multiplier that grows with consecutive success and resets on a miss. The game has not become harder, but it has become interesting, because the player now chooses between a safe action and a valuable one.
That is the entire design of our scoring systems. We rarely add new mechanics; we add consequence. Fruit Slice Rush has one mechanic — swipe — and one strategic layer, the combo, which is what makes you choose a long risky swipe over three short safe ones.
The tuning rule is that a combo has to be both reachable and losable. If the multiplier is easy to keep, it becomes background noise. If it is impossible to keep, players stop trying and play for the safe floor. Both extremes collapse the decision, and the decision is the whole point.
We also try to make the reset visible. A combo counter that vanishes with no feedback feels like a bug. A counter that flashes and resets gives the player a clear thing to be annoyed about, and that annoyance is retention.
The best compliment we get is some version of “I knew I should have taken the safe shot.” If a player is narrating their own bad decision after losing, the scoring system is working.