Gummi Dragon

“	"My Gummi Dragons! Drop them into the egg collectors so I can take them home. Release all of my sweet babies to pass the level."	”
—Denize, mobile tutorial

Gummi dragon is an element in Candy Crush Saga. It is the current unified ingredient and it replaced all ingredients starting from the second quarter of 2023.

History[]

In March 2023, it was announced on King's website that some people would have dragons in their version instead of cherries. According to King, they are Denize's children, and to be brought back home, they need to be collected the same way cherries are. The gummi dragons were put in beta for several weeks, before finally being available to all players by update 1.251 (release of episode 942 to 944) in early May.

During efforts to replace all cherries with gummi dragons, however, one design oversight left out one vestigial reference to cherries in the Chocolate Box UI at the time gummi dragons were rolled out.

Pre-release events[]

Not long before the release of gummi dragons, hazelnuts were removed from all the levels that had them. The Level Failed screen for ingredients was modified to read, "You did not gather all the collectibles".
The tilemap code for cherries and hazelnuts was changed to have the texture of a gummi dragon. This had no discovered effect on gameplay.

Properties[]

A gummi dragon behaves exactly the same way ingredients do in terms of function.
Lollipop Hammers cannot target gummi dragons.
Free Switches cannot be used directly on gummi dragons; they can instead be used on a candy adjacent to one.
Gummi dragons are immune to chocolate and dark chocolate and cannot be hurt by special candy blasts.
The dragons appear in eggs. They need to be dropped down to certain squares on the board that are egg collectors, which will allow them to break free from their eggs and fly away.
- Gummi dragons cannot be freed in egg collectors if the dragons themselves are encased by certain blockers such as Licorice Locks or Sugar Coats.
- Some levels may have egg collectors that have a tile below them. Should a gummi dragon be dropped to one, they will be freed if they stop at the tile that contains the egg collector.
Gummi Dragons don't block rainbow rapids.
Gummi Dragons have five different idle animations, which have no effect on gameplay whatsoever:
- They can breathe fire.
- They can blink and look sideways for a few seconds, before looking back to their left as usual.
- They rock around in their egg.
- They briefly open their mouth and then rock around in their egg.
- They can take a nap in their egg for several seconds, before waking up and yawning.
The objective related to collecting dragons reads "Release the Gummi Dragons!"
If the player completes a gummi dragon level where the number of gummi dragons to release are fewer than the total number present, the remaining gummi dragons on the board will automatically be released after the final, winning move has finished playing out, cascade combos and all, even if they are not positioned in an egg collector.

Names in other languages[]

Language	Name
Spanish	Dragones de gominola
Japanese	グミドラゴン
Korean	젤리 드래곤 (jelly dragon)

Trivia[]

This is the 4th element that serves as a replacement for another one, after Liquorice Shell, Toffee Swirl, and Countdown Crystal.
The destruction of a baby gummi dragon's egg is not animated at all; the egg instantly shatters shortly after the dragon is dropped to an egg collector, with broken egg pieces inexplicably appearing a split second before the hatchling breaks out of the egg. The broken eggshell pieces are classified as "flashing effects" that can be removed in the game's accessibility settings.
This is the first reskinned element that is not a blocker.
Not long before the release of the Gummi Dragons, the level failed screen for ingredients levels was changed to show "You did not gather all the collectibles". This hinted to players that ingredients would be changed.
Despite the official claim that the gummi dragons are the children of Denize, who is an eastern dragon, they resemble western dragons due to their wings and more lizard-like and dinosaur-like appearance.
Gummi Dragons are selected as the possible tasks in Chocolate Box.
Some have observed that the gummi dragons appear to resemble Yoshi from the Mario video game franchise.
Unlike the Countdown Crystal, this element has been released for all players, and it's heavily implied on King's website that it will be a permanent change (gummi dragons will remain in the game and won't be reverted back to ingredients).
Some have speculated that the permanent change to gummi dragons means that gummi dragons will be required for order locks in the future. While this wouldn't affect gameplay for the most part, it would mean that gummi dragons would be required to unlock order locks (something that never happened with ingredients before they were changed).
Due to an ongoing "content drought", some have speculated that most new elements starting from this one will just be retextures of pre-existing blockers.
The beta and official release of the dragons (Spring 2023) were also around the time where King would typically add new blockers.