Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-14966981-20151121114733/@comment-26388711-20151122043828

There are currently only 4 variable levels, 3 of them are in Reality and only one is in Dreamworld. All of them are completely based on their initial outcome such that there is a separate difficulty level for each outcome, and such that there is a great variance between the outcomes.

Additionally, you can quit a level without cost in Mobile if you have not used any moves, so you can exploit a Variable level by rejecting all unfavorable outcomes and only playing the attempt with the favorable outcome.

This is a detailed explanation of each of the Variable levels and their outcomes:
 * Level 645+: Initial placement of its single ingredient is enough to give a separate difficulty. Only one in nine attempts are favorable.
 * 0 switches, ingredient in center: Very Easy, 1:9 odds
 * 1 switch, ingredient one tile from center: Somewhat hard, 2:9 odds
 * 2 switches, ingredient moderately on side: Very hard, 2:9 odds
 * 3 switches, ingredient far from center: Insanely hard, 2:9 odds
 * 4 switches, ingredient on the very ends: Nearly impossible, 2:9 odds
 * Level 674: Initial placement of the first ingredient is enough to give a separate difficulty. However, you can manipulate the position where the second ingredient will spawn by making a match below such that they can only spawn on favorable columns. Two in seven attempts begin with a favorable board. Here are the outcomes based on initial positioning of the first ingredient.
 * 0 switches, extreme lateral spawners: Somewhat easy, 2/7 chance
 * 1 switch, midway between side and center: Hard, 2/7 chance
 * 2 switches, close to center: Insanely hard, 2/7 chance
 * 3 switches, center column: Nearly impossible, 1/7 chance
 * Ingredient on bottom: Nearly impossible, glitched outcome.
 * Level 976: This one is different from the rest, as the difficulty and outcome is not clearly differentiable. All the order are present on the board, and such that it is designed fo triggering an instant-victory chain reaction. At just five moves, you must detonate the isolated vertical striped candy such that it will detonate the two isolated color bombs, plus detonating an additional vertical striped candy.
 * The chances could either be Very Easy if a special candy is ready to make and detonate such that it will trigger a chain reaction and detonate the isolated striped candy (a ready board), or up to Impossible if not. Common cases of a ready board include:
 * Unlocking sugar chests such that a match is immediately available for the supplied horizontal striped candy between two chests. If this occurs, failure can only be declared if you intentionally avoid making this match.
 * Making and detonating a vertical striped candy on the same column of the supplied horizontal striped candy between two chests.
 * Making a Color Bomb and detonate candies that are of the color of the supplied horizontal striped candy between two chests. If you detonate the isolated striped candy, you may only detonate just one striped candy, which is not enough.
 * The exact numerical difficulty value for this one is not easy to calculate. However, you should tally up the 'ready' outcomes and the non-ready outcomes. Then make a percentage of the ready outcomes, derive odds, and match your odds to the appropriate difficulty level.