Level 500

This level is intrinsically special due to its round number, its many moves, and featuring almost all the blockers at the time it was released. Even more remarkable is that this is the final level of the episode, making it the second level to be an episode finale on a multiple of 100. The first was level 200.

With a complex design and abundance of icing, it is a difficult level to complete. Furthermore, this level also formerly had all the blockers except the toffee tornado before it was nerfed.

Difficulty

 * This level is hard due to the amount of blockers that separate the ingredients from the bottom of the screen, with 36 three-layer icings. Just about every blocker in the game is present in this level (with the exception of toffee tornado). There is also a division in the screen, first by liquorice locks, then by liquorice swirls from the dispenser, and the dispenser also drops bombs which will explode in nine moves, making them a massive threat. If you do not pay attention, they will blow up in no time.
 * The chocolate spawners make it almost impossible to reach the bottom layers of icing, and also the coconut wheel at the bottom is often rendered unusable by the liquorice swirls, as well as the fact it cannot reach the bottom icing. The chocolate will also multiply out rapidly.
 * It is hard to bring down all eight ingredients even though there are 60 moves and five candy colours.
 * The coconut wheel does not clear the bottom layer of icing, also, the coconut wheel is often set off prematurely or is rendered useless by liquorice swirls. Bombs can also get stuck in that position.
 * Overall, this is a difficult ingredients level that generally takes many tries. Before it was nerfed it was considered one of the hardest ingredient drop levels like levels 181 and 361.
 * The ingredients are worth 80,000 points, which is equal to the one star target score.

Strategy

 * Make matches next to the icing to remove the layers of icing.
 * Create striped candies or wrapped candy + striped candy combinations to release the coconut wheel and remove the slices of the cake bomb
 * Once the coconut wheel is released, clear the liquorice swirls above it. Then move the coconut wheel upwards, where it will make 3 horizontally striped candies and remove the slices of the cake bomb.
 * Once all cake bombs have been cleared, make as many vertically striped candies or its combinations above the ingredients as this is the only way to the icing below the ingredients.
 * Mind the bombs and do not let them get trapped between the cake bombs or at the bottom space.

Difficulty

 * The presence of five colours makes it easy to create special candies. However, it is not all that useful till most of the blockers have been cleared.
 * The ingredients are worth 80,000 points. Hence, an additional 180,000 points for two stars and an additional 220,000 points for three stars have to be earned through matching of candies.
 * The player is required to earn an additional 3,000 points per move for two stars.
 * The player is required to earn an additional 3,680 points per move for three stars. This amount is higher than the maximum amount of points a striped candy during sugar crush can provide which in this case is 3,540 points  . Moreover, only a few hundred points will be earned for at least the first ten moves or even more because the blockers heavily reduce available board space.
 * Colour bombs are hard to create due to the limited number of spaces, at least for the first ten moves or more.
 * Most of the moves have to be spent to clear the blockers and dropping ingredients, reducing the number of moves left to create colour bombs.
 * The dispenser frequently dispenses liquorice swirls instead of candy bombs, limiting the opportunity to create colour bomb + candy bomb combinations and reduce the power of the colour bomb if used on regular candies or even colour bombs.
 * Clearing the cake bomb removes all the special candies on the board including colour bombs. Moreover, the amount of points earned from the first cake bomb is likely to be less than 3,700 points due to the huge amount of blockers.

Strategy

 * Try to create as many colour bomb + candy bomb combinations. Even then, using colour bombs on the most plentiful candies are also effective.

Miscellaneous Info

 * 1) 8 ingredients x 10,000 points per ingredient = 80,000 points
 * 180,000 points / 60 moves = 3,000 points per move
 * 220,000 points / 60 moves = 3666,67 points per move
 * 3,000 points per striped candy + 540 points if the striped destroys nine candies
 * 1) Every regular or special candy cleared by a cake bomb is worth 100 points
 * 2) The amount of points earned by the striped candies during sugar crush may be higher or lower. If the striped candy causes cascades after detonation, the amount of points is increased. If the striped candy destroys a blocker or less than nine candies which is the greatest number of spaces in this board and does not cause cascades, the amount of points earned will be less than 3,540 points. For the former, a minimum of 140 points per striped candy has be created from cascades.

Trivia

 * Level 500 is the second level to be an exact hundred and was an episode finale. The first was level 200. Interestingly, people thought level 200 would be the last level and incredibly hard, when actually it is quite easy. Both were ingredients levels. The difference is this level is a lot harder.
 * This is one of those levels, like the original level 147 and level 181, which look easy but are actually very difficult.
 * Many people thought this level would be a jelly level due to the pattern of level finales. Levels like 350 (the hardest in the game before it was nerfed), 380, 410, 440, and 470 were all difficult jelly finales (every other finale), and the ones in between being candy order levels. However, when level 485 turned out to be jelly instead of candy order, people began to suspect level 500 would not be a jelly level, as it turned out not to be.
 * There was a poll before the release of this level to vote on the predicted level type. About 70% of people voted "Jelly".
 * Many people thought that it would be the last level ever, as there was a ten week gap between this level's release and the next episode, Ice Cream Caves. The record-breaking gap was the reason for this belief.
 * Before this level was nerfed, it had 65 moves, which was previously the most amount of moves in a level in the game. This record has since been broken with level 666 having 66 moves which in turn is broken by level 696 having 75 moves.
 * This is a milestone level, and the next episode released are Dreamworld episodes.
 * Now, the prophecy that even level 500 will have a Dreamworld counterpart has come true.
 * The prophecy that all levels will have a Dreamworld counterpart never came true; this is proved by the release of the Devil's episode and all the other episodes released after it.

Celebrating the milestone
To celebrate the release of this level and reaching halfway to 1000, King created Dreamworld, a separate saga where each level is similar to its reality counterpart but Odus the owl is balancing on the Moon Scale and collecting certain candy colours will make him fall off and lose a life, but after a certain number of moves, Odus activates Moon Struck where the number of candy colours is reduced to four (from either five or six) for a certain number of moves.

Dreamworld was released on November 27, 2013, which was many weeks after the release of Level 500, although King has stated that Dreamworld was dedicated to the release of 500 levels.

Unlike level 200, which had Sweet Surprise, there was not a particular celebratory episode for it, for the episode containing levels 501-515 is Ice Cream Caves. However, most would consider Dreamworld is a much bigger element to the game.

Interestingly enough, Level 500 itself got its Dreamworld counterpart upon the release of Sprinkle Springs, on December 3, 2014. This is more than one year since the release of this level! Unfortunately, not all levels will ever have a Dreamworld counterpart, since Dozy Dawn brought Dreamworld to a premature end.