LINE Cookie Run

Cookie Run is a side-scrolling running game by Devsisters for iOS and Android. Released in January 23, 2014, Players guide cookies to run as far as they can. Cookie Run is the spiritual successor to Devsister's older game, OvenBreak. This game is a social game powered by Kakao in South Korea, QQ in China, and LINE for the rest of the world.

The game has undergone six seasonal (or content) changes, changing a lot of gameplay and adding a variety of new content to the game, thus refreshing the game periodically.

While the mechanics are seemingly pretty simple to understand, it takes a lot of practice to truly master. It could be a lighthearted run at first, but turns out to be a real challenging and adrenaline-pumping escape in mere seconds.

Players compete with their LINE friends in the weekly leaderboards. The weekly leaderboard reset every Sunday at 9PM (GMT+9). Depending on how many people the player surpasses, they would be given weekly rewards.

The Cookie Run franchise has expanded with the succeeding game CookieRun: OvenBreak.

History
Cookie Run was initially preceded by "OvenBreak", a similar game to Cookie Run released by Devsisters in 2009. The hit success of Ovenbreak brought Devsisters to modify Ovenbreak to fit the Korean market, affiliated with the KakaoTalk platform and released the Kakao version of Cookie Run on 2 April 2013, a move that heavily boosted the games popularity because KakaoTalk has been downloaded on 95% of smartphones in Korea. By the end of 2013, Cookie Run grossed KRW 62 billion alone, making Cookie Run the most downloaded app of 2013 in South Korea, and statistically being downloaded by half of the country's population.

The hit popularity of Cookie Run resulted in Devsisters expanding the game internationally, by launching LINE Cookie Run in January 2014. The LINE version had garnered 10 million downloads in just 30 days after its release, quickly claiming the top game in 10 different Asian countries, most noticeably Japan, Thailand , and Indonesia. By July 2015, LINE Cookie Run had been downloaded 50 million times.

Devsisters also signed a deal with iDreamSky to bring Cookie Run into the Chinese market, using the QQ platform.

However, in 2015, the trend for Cookie Run was declining. Devsisters had reported their operating loss for fiscal year 2015, mainly caused by declining sales for in-app purchases.

On June 8th, 2018, LINE Cookie Run closed down, meaning it could no longer be downloaded nor played. However, the Kakao version can still be downloaded.

LINE Cookie Run’s spiritual successor is CookieRun: OvenBreak, which added new Cookies, lands, and modes not seen in LINE.

Controls
There are only two keys to control the cookie: Jump button and Slide button. Tapping the jump button twice will allow the cookie to perform a double-jump. Tapping the slide button allows the cookie to slide. Players will only rely on this to guide the cookie to avoid obstacles, pitholes, and to get various power-ups.

Players are able to flip the jump and slide buttons to the other position if they wish. It doesn't affect the play style of the game. Some players might be more comfortable using this setup than others.

Starting from Orange Cookie’s release, players were introduced to an ability button that replaces the "Slide" button when using specific cookies at certain times, usually when sliding is unavailable such as when jumping or during an ability.

Season
Cookie Run has undergone several changes to further expand the game. Every new season, the game changed the score of jellies obtained, redesigned the stages, and added more twists to the game.

Cookies
Main Article: Cookies Cookies are the playable character that possess its own unique skill, which could range from collecting coins, running longer, gaining more points, etc. Players can buy cookies with coins or crystals. Cookies are available to buy with coins after players completed the requirement to unlock said cookie.

At first, Cookies could only be upgraded up to Level 6. Sometime during an early update, the maximum level increased to Level 8. Upon reaching the maximum level, players are granted a treasure from the fully upgraded Cookie.

With the correct combination of Cookies and Pets, the pair will be granted an additional ability for players to use. Choosing the pair correctly may help boost the player's score.

Cookies are divided into five categories.

C-grade cookies are the most basic cookies which have no distinctive skill other than giving the player extra XP. There are only two cookies in this category.

B-grade cookies are cookies with basic capabilities which can help boost gameplay.

A-grade cookies are cookies with a stat-modifying skill that could help players boost their scores in the game.

S-grade cookies are the most superior cookies with varieties of visual skills that could significantly boost the player's score. New S-grade cookies are always added in a set interval for the players. There are more than 20 cookies in this category.

L-grade cookies are cookies that cannot be bought and can only be obtained by collecting Mystery Jewels. Other than gaining additional health points compared to S-grade cookies, their abilities are similar to S-grade cookies.

Pets
Main Article: Pets

Pets are the accompanying creatures with their distinctive abilities to aid cookies in their run. Combined with the Cookies, players can match the best Cookie/Pet combo to run and boost their gameplay. Pets can only be obtained by hatching eggs, completing events, or getting Pets Lucky Draw.

Pets are also divided into the same category as cookies. Their grade represents the rarity of the pet when hatching eggs. There are three type of eggs for players to hatch, and it depends on chances. Lower grade pets have a higher chance to obtain than higher-grade pets.

Because it depends on chances, players may hatch the same pet again, resulting in upgrading their stats. Players can avoid this and maximize their crystal consumption by fully upgrading them. It is to make sure that the egg's next hatch would be a new pet, thus bringing them one step closer to their wanted pet.

Like Cookies, Pets at first could only be upgraded up to Level 6. Sometime during an early update, the maximum level increased to Level 8. Upon reaching the maximum level, players are granted a treasure from the fully upgraded Pet.

Treasures
Main Article: Treasures Treasures are items that can be equipped to further customize your style of playing. They can be used for additional power, abilities, and bonuses. Players can equip up to three treasures at a time.

While some treasures assist players in the game, other treasures helped you gain free items every day and are marked as POWER+ treasures. This is one way players can earn additional crystals every day.

There are four grades for each treasure, C, B, A, and S-grade treasures, where C-grade treasures have a weak effect, and S-grade treasures have a strong effect. Players can open treasures by opening up treasure chests. There are four packages Treasure Merchant has to offer:

Unlike Cookies and Pets (when fully upgraded), players may obtain the same treasure multiple times.

Treasures are upgradable up to +9 with Coins and Crystals. While C, B, and A grade treasures have a low chance to fail, with coins, S-grade treasures have a very high chance to fail on later upgrades. Crystal upgrades will always guarantee a successful upgrade.

Evolve Treasures
With the New World update, players have the option to Evolve their treasure into a better treasure with an augmented effect. Players have to collect specific ingredients found in the game to evolve. There are two types of evolutions players can use:
 * Common Evolution
 * Special Evolution

Common Evolution have a failure chance upon evolution. Once it fails, players will retain their treasure and the ingredients. Once they are successfully evolved, the evolved treasure may retain its level. Evolved treasures are represented with gold bars on top and bottom of the treasure icon. Special Evolution guarantees the player an evolution.

Evolving treasures gives players a chance for the treasure to have a LUCKY (or Blessed) Evolution where the effects are significantly augmented, slightly more than the regular evolved treasure. A blessed treasure are represented like regular evolved treasures but with a glow and shine. Players have a 44% chance of getting a blessed treasure through Special Evolution and only 22% through common evolution, providing that the evolution succeeds.

Episodes and Stages
Prior to the New World Update, players could only play in one fixed stage, but with the update, players can play in more than one stage. Each stage has a fixed pattern with some small random elements inside carefully designed for players to pass through. Players may choose the combination of Cookies, Pets, and Treasures to go through stages. There are five playable Episodes for players to play in, and two special episodes.

Every stage, there are three Mystery Boxes to collect. It is the only way for players to gain Ingredients.

In the first special stage, Ghost Pirate's Island of Coins, players compete to collect as many coins as they can. There are no other jellies besides coins and large Health Potions, and scores aren’t counted.

In the second special stage, Tower of Frozen Waves, players have to clear 100 different levels (known as floors) in order to scale up the tower. Each floor has three stars that can be obtained by clearing certain objectives. Getting a certain amount of stars can unlock rewards. Some floors disable cookie, pet, and treasure effects.

Life System
Like other Free-to-play games, Life System is a system to keep players from playing the game too much. The number of plays are limited because players can play it for free, making the developers unable to cash in from free players. Each run costs 1 heart.

Players are granted five lives to start with, and with each heart used, they will have to wait 8 minutes before it recharges again. Once all five lives are recharged, no more lives will be added until one is used again.

However, there are four ways to expand this life system so that players can play more than the game limit. The four are:
 * Receiving lives from friends.
 * Invite new players through the invite event.
 * Collecting rewards from Mystery Jewels.
 * Purchasing through crystals.

Of course, the lives are kind of a chain reaction where the developers encourages players to invite many players to play with them, thus sending each other lives. To start the chain reaction, players need to start sending lives to their friends, which will be notified on LINE. Once they received the player's life, they will have to send back a life to the player, in which the player can receive. This will unconsciously become a chain reaction where people can send each other lives for them to play more than the default 5 lives.

There is a cooldown for each players to send lives to other people. Players are not able to send more than 1 life to the same person within an hour. Accepting the life from a person whom players just sent a life to will end the chain reaction.

Getting more friends to play with will definitely increase the amount of lives players can hold. Sending a life to 100 active friends will grant you a 100 free lives, providing if they all received your life.

Of course, for some people, this can become annoying, especially for players who do not want to be disturbed by LINE Notifications. They can disable themselves so that people cannot send them lives. This resulted in a limitation for the life system.

Inviting friends will grant the players one heart for every invite sent. There is no limit for this, and an invited friends cannot be sent another invite in order to get another heart.

Alternatively, players can gain additional hearts by collecting random rewards from collecting a full set of the mystery jewels in each episode. They are also limited as once players gained the heart reward, players cannot get it again.

And finally, if players do not have enough lives, and do not want to annoy their friends (or have no friends in LINE), they can be purchased through crystals. (up to 150 Hearts by using 100)

Keys
Keys are used to play the Special Episodes: Ghost Pirate's Island of Coins and Tower of Frozen Waves. They act the same as lives, but are limited to three keys, and will only recharge every 20 minutes (in contrast with 8 minutes for 1 life, 40 minutes for 5 lives). These are far more exclusive, since users cannot get additional keys through sending them to their friends. There are only three other ways to increase the amount of keys:


 * Buy 1 key with 20 lives (limited to 5 purchases a day)
 * Collect rewards from Mystery Jewels.
 * Purchasing through crystals.
 * Purchasing using medals in the Medal Exchange Shop

Since Ghost Pirate's Island of Coins is the only episode that can generate lots of coins in a single run (2-3 minutes), playing in this episode is capped with keys. It also limits players to excessively attempt the special episode and gain coins easily.

Jellies
Jellies are the collectible items scattered in the world of Cookie Run. They are the ones that help players gain points in the game, and is the integral part of the game. Jellies may also help the Cookie as a guide and path to pass the stages carefully. They are usually called Jelly Trail. At later games they are no longer existent and players are challenged to survive without the trail.

Some jellies are required for players to take or they will hit obstacles or fall into holes. Power-up jellies are able to help blast through seemingly impossible obstacles to pass.

There are 7 types of jellies in Cookie Run.


 * Normal Jellies - Upgradable jellies that are the most common to collect. Pets can take and convert them into their own special jellies.
 * Coins - Coins are jellies that not only give the player points, but also give the player in-game currency for upgrades.
 * Bear Jellies - Yellow, Pink, Large, and Frozen Bear jellies that provide much bigger points than normal jellies in their max level. Yellow ones are common, pink ones are rare, and large ones are hard to find. The frozen ones are only found in Tower of Frozen Waves, and provide the most points out of all the Bear Jellies.
 * Power Jellies - Jellies that give the player a Power-up to help smash through the stages.
 * Alphabet Jellies - Letters obtainable by the players. Once the player collects all the letters to spell BONUSTIME, they will enter Bonus Time mode.
 * Star Jellies - Jellies that can be popped by the player to produce a large amount of collectible confetti. Collecting it all may give the player up to 100,000 points.
 * Special Jellies - Jellies made by Cookies and Pets. While some of them produce jellies that are mentioned above, others may create an exclusive jelly that can only be found by equipping them, such as Jujube Slice Jelly, which can only be produced by using Jujube Cookie. These jellies can sometimes be found exclusively on certain episodes, such as the Dark Moon Jelly, which can only be found on Episode 4.

Power Upgrades and Boosts
There are other tools that players can use to enhance their abilities in Cookie Run. Most of these are necessary to upgrade to ensure longer runs and higher scores.

There are three powers that are upgradable up to Level 60-70. In the first season, the maximum level that powers could be upgraded to was Level 20. It was then increased every seasonal update.

An upgrade starts at 800, and every upgrade adds an additional  500 to the previous nominal.


 * Energy Upgrade - Increases the maximum amount of energy for the cookie. Note that a full health in the game consists of this energy upgrade plus the health of the cookie.
 * Jelly Upgrade - Increases the score of each basic jelly obtained. Note that on upgrading from Level 21-30, the upgrade cost gets increasingly higher, up to an additional 3,000 coins before going back to the original pattern at Level 31.
 * Bonus Time Upgrades - Increases the length of bonus time and bonus points for jellies gathered during Bonus Time. The first 30 levels of this upgrade allows players to increase the length of bonus time from 3 seconds to 11 seconds. The last 40 levels deals with additional points gathered from jellies during Bonus Time.

There are also six optional one-time-use boosts that players can buy to gain additional abilities.


 * Energy Boost ( 800) - Gives the cookie an additional 40 energy during the run it is used on. Prior to the New World update, the extra 40 energy will disappear once it has been used and cannot be recovered by Health Potions. With the New World update, players can refill the extra energy with Health Potions.
 * Power Jelly Boost ( 800) - Power Jellies will last longer. This only affected time-based power jellies like Magnet Jelly, Blast Jelly, Giant Jelly, and All-Bear Jelly.
 * Double XP ( 800) - Doubles the XP during the run.
 * Fast Start ( 1,600) - Blast through the first stage, collecting all coins and jellies. Some Cookies may benefit from this.
 * Cookie Relay ( 3,000) - Have another Cookie continue running when the first Cookie runs out of Energy, with half of their normal amount of Energy. This is necessary to gain a really high score. Having a combination of relay and treasures are the key to dominate the leaderboard. Some Treasures may benefit from this.
 * Random Boost ( 1,200, then 600) - Giving player a random exclusive boost. Players can buy for  1,200. If players are not satisfied with the boost, players can replace the boost with another random boost for  600. Players cannot have the same boost after rebuying, but the tossed random boost may reappear after lots of replacing.

Currencies
There are two main currencies in Cookie Run, Coins and Crystals.

Coins
Coins are the main currency of Cookie Run. It is the only way for players to enhance their game experience by buying things and upgrading what the players have. Coins can be collected by collecting it while playing the game, but there are also lots of other ways to get them.

Since Coins are valuable, many players dedicate themselves to gather coins in their game rather than getting a high score, as getting coins will make them a better player. There are lots of ways to get them. In the first season, they were very scarce, but later seasons, players could easily collect a huge sum of coins in a game using the correct Random Boost.

Coins are the most common reward that players are given. Since they are able to be found easily, they are not very valuable compared to crystals, but they may be more valuable than C and B-grade Cookies and Pets.

A wise player will utilize their easy-to-get currency to spend as much as they can instead of using crystals if possible, because coins are easy to collect.

Ghost Pirate's Island of Coins is a special stage where players do not compete against their score, but by their amount of coins collected in a single run. This can also be another source for getting coins, but not many coins can be gain from it compared to other methods.

Coins are obtainable by:
 * Playing the Game - Players can collect coins while playing for them to use at the end.
 * Gifts Lucky Draw - Earning 100 gift points allow players to redeem their gifts. The most common reward is Coins.
 * Buying with Crystals - Spending the premium currency for the main currency that can actually be collected, thus cutting the easy way out.
 * Selling Treasures and Ingredients - Unwanted Treasures and Ingredients can be sold if the player chooses not to extract Magic Powders.
 * Mystery Boxes - Some low tier boxes may give the player coins.
 * Events - Events tend to reward players a large sum of coins.
 * Power+ Treasure Effect - Once a day, some treasures can award the players coins, such as Flaring Slice of Sun and Magic Sword Handle.
 * Achievements - Completing Episode and Overall Achievements can grant you a huge amount of coins.

Coins can be used for:
 * Buying Cookies - Cookies can be bought by coins if the requirement is completed.
 * Upgrading Cookies and Pets - Cookies and Pets can be upgraded to strengthen their abilities for use in the game.
 * Buying Good Treasure Chest - Buying the low-class treasure chest which will open up a C or B-grade treasure.
 * Upgrading Treasures - One of the two ways to upgrade treasures. This is one of the most heavy uses for coins, as higher tier treasures have a tendency to fail lots of times. Players have to waste additional coins to upgrade until they succeed.
 * Evolving Treasures - Also one of the two ways to evolve treasures. Evolving through coins may fail and will have to rebuy.
 * Boosts and Power Upgrades - Coins can be used to buy Random Boost and Cookie Relay to get ahead of the game. It can also be used to upgrade their health, normal jellies, and bonus time length.

Crystals
Crystals are the premium currency of the game, in which players can buy out for a shortcut in the game. Although it can mostly be used to "cheat" the way out of the game, most of the purchases can be done for free (through coins or other means), although it could take much more time than using Crystals. For example, upgrading treasures using crystals guarantee a success, while upgrading treasure through coins have a slight chance of fail.

Crystals are required to be used in hatching Pets and higher-tier Treasures. Since they cannot be bought by coins, many players save their crystals for it. It is wise to spend crystals on something that the player cannot buy through coins. If there's an alternate means to do so, better use the other means.

While being the most powerful currency in the game, it cannot be used to create Magic Powders. Crystals also can't be gained by farming rigorously. Players will have to wait for the right time to gain additional crystals.

Crystals can be gained by:
 * Buying with Real Money - This is where Cookie Run gets its revenue. It can be as low as 20 and as much as  780 (or  1,420 during promotion.)
 * Daily-Login Bonuses - On certain days, players are granted 2~15 for logging in daily.
 * Power+ Treasure Effect - Once a day, some treasures can award the players extra crystals. This is the most versatile way to gain as many crystals as the player wants, providing they have enough treasures to supply. See: Crystal Engine
 * Limited-Time Events - Most of the time, events help players gain crystals in their arsenal.
 * Achievements - Completing Episode and Overall Achievements can grant you an extra 1.
 * Entering Secret Code - Entering an active secret code will give players bonus crystals for them to spend.

Crystals can be used for (Sorted by priority):
 * Buying Higher-Tier Treasure Chest - Treasures are vital for gaining higher scores in addition to Cookies and Pets. Getting a higher-tier treasure can only be done by crystals.
 * Hatching Pet Eggs - Pets can also only be bought by crystals. Since it was dealt by random, players tend to fully upgrade their existing pets to ensure that their next pet is a new one, thus making them 1 step closer to their wanted pet.
 * Expand Treasure Cabinet - Treasure Cabinet can be expanded to give more room to store treasures. For 30, players may keep a good treasure instead of selling them for more room. Pro players tend to do this, as they want to store treasures that may help them in the future.
 * Saving Cookies from Falling - Crystals can be used to extend the game once more for 5 if the cookie fell into a hole. This would be the only chance for the cookie to be saved before falling again. Players usually do this if they have an extremely good game.
 * Upgrading and Evolving Treasures - Using crystals also provides a shortcut to those who do not want their next upgrade/evolution to fail. Evolving treasures through Crystal means will give them a higher chance to get a blessed evolved treasure.
 * Buying Locked Cookies - Buying locked Cookies with crystals provides a shortcut for players to use the cookie without finishing its unlock requirement first. It is used for purchasing Angel Cookie and Mint Choco Cookie with crystals, as it will speed up the overall upgrading process.
 * Expand Treasure Slot - Increases how many treasures players can equip. Alternatively, players can complete the unlock requirement to unlock it for free. New players are not recommended to do this, as the requirements have been toned down.
 * Buying Coins and Lives - For the desperate. Players can cheat their way out and have an instant upgrade through Crystals. Buying lives is also something that nobody wants to use. When players have used all their lives, they will have to wait 8 minutes to get an additional run, but it can be prevented.

Gift Points
Gift Points are points rewarded to players that made an interaction to the game, such as making purchases, interacting with friends, and completing events. With every 100 collected, players would have a chance to open one of five gifts that contained various rewards. Although players choose which gift to open, a mechanism analysis reveals that all gifts provided the same reward no matter which one is picked, even though the game shows different rewards.

Gift Points are used by the developer to reward players indefinitely by giving free coins, one of the boost sets, or even a free Pet that ranges from C-rank to A-rank.

Getting gift points outside of purchasing (through coins or crystals) are capped to a certain amount per day to prevent any exploit that could possibly make players acquire infinite rewards and not play the game.

Gifts Lucky Draw
You can receive any of the following rewards from a gift. No gifts give more than others.


 * Pets Lucky Draw will cease to exist if players have acquired and fully upgraded all C, B, and A Pets, with the exception of Witty Dumbbell, and all event-related Pets.
 * Cookie will also cease to exist if players have acquired and fully upgraded all, C, B, and A Cookies, with the exception of Ginger Claus.
 * In the City of Wizards update, Gift Lucky Draw will reward cookies more often.

Reception and Critical Reviews
Cookie Run generally received positive reviews. AppsGoer stated "...unlike other endless runners, you may not die instantly as you hit one barrier", comparing it with a similar endless running game, Temple Run.

Compiled customer reviews from over 3,300,000 Android users and 21,000 iOS users, have rated LINE Cookie Run with 4.3 and 4.5 out of 5 stars respectively, as of March 2016.

However, as Cookie Run evolved, a few loyal players have criticized Cookie Run for exploiting the same focus on grinding, buying and collecting treasures, and newer cookies that tend to overshadow older cookies' abilities for creating high scores. A few players have also expressed their disappointment with Treasure Draw Season where some Crystal-generating treasures were retired, and decreasing chances of players obtaining those which weren't retired.

Version History
Here lists the recent changes for LINE Cookie Run. The features in Italics are not stated officially, but are considerably noticeable.