Hard levels

This page is about hard levels regarding completion of a level. For hard levels regarding earning three stars, click here. For hard levels rated by the game, click here.

At crushingcandies.com, many will raise their voice on difficult levels. This shows pre-nerfed level 102.

A hard level is a level on Candy Crush Saga that is considered difficult by the majority of players. These levels usually require multiple tries, and they have a low victory ratio, usually one win for every three or more tries. Levels can be hard for many different reasons. Any level type has the potential to have hard levels.

The hardest level type, in Reality, is thought to be mixed levels, and the easiest is thought to be timed levels before they were removed.

The hardest level types in Dreamworld (before its removal) were thought to have been candy order levels and ingredients levels, and the easiest was thought to have been moves levels.

Most levels marked as hard have hexagonal level markers (skulls in HTML5), and have more intense dialogues; such levels are known as hexagon levels. However, not all hexagon levels are hard (Levels 10 is a very easy hexagon level, 1202 and 1601 as somewhat easy hexagon levels, etc.), and not all extremely hard or even nearly impossible levels are hexagonal.

HTML5 features two more types of hexagon levels, called "super hard levels", which features a "thunderstorm", and "nightmarishly hard levels", which features Odus. These levels can be very difficult for some, or even for most people. They appear once in every episode, but neither of them appear at the same time. However, not all levels with those markers are extremely hard or nearly impossible, and vice versa.

A "super hard level"

Super Hard Level icon

What makes a hard level?

Candy Bomb - An abundance of candy bombs, especially those with few moves in hard to reach places, can make a level much harder. Biscuit Bungalow, formerly, had been known for having levels that players will lose due to an exploding Candy Bomb.

Candy Cane Fence - In later levels, this can encase elements like special candies, such as colour bombs, and even blockers, such as candy bombs. Since they act as a board divider, it makes a level harder because you can't match candies from one side to another. These include levels such as 3258 and 3741.

Blocker - Blockers can make a level hard by blocking off jellies or by stopping ingredients falling to the bottom. A blocker with many layers can make a level hard by the sheer number of hits needed. This one mainly refers to big chunks of icing, large amounts of popcorn, or thick layers of sugar chest. For instance, 2115 has an extremely hard-to-reach five-layered icing at the end of the board, stopping ingredients.

Move Limit - In some levels, the move limit is deliberately very low. This means a player must be very lucky with their moves. Most of the levels in Cavity Cave are hard due to this.

Chocolate Spawner - A chocolate spawner can make any level much harder, as they are unbreakable and never stop producing chocolate. This will make a level much harder if they are in awkward positions.

Liquorice Swirl - The liquorice swirl is not a hard-to-break blocker itself, but it can make a level much harder if there are large amounts of it, as it makes striped candies almost useless and can be extremely annoying.

Difficult Orders - Sometimes candy order levels can be hard due to the sheer difficulty of the order collection, for example, a very hard-to-obtain special candy combination, such as mixing two colour bombs. The difficulty of these levels can be further reinforced if they have a high chance of cascades, which can set off the special candies before they are to be used.

Candy Colours - A level can have up to six candy colours or, recently, five. With six colours on the board, the candies are much more mixed up and matches are harder to make, as are special candies, making a level harder than it would be if there were fewer colours.

Layout - The board can sometimes take a very complicated and confusing shape, sometimes a very awkward shape, making it harder to complete the level, even with fewer candy colours. In later levels, most boards are small to the point where it's even impossible to create special candies.

Misplaced ingredients - In ingredients drop levels, you have to drop the ingredients where the green arrows are, but sometimes, the ingredients are just under a dead space, where an ingredient can't fall. It is hard to move a stuck ingredient, as you need to position the candies carefully to make a match.

Too many ingredients - In ingredient levels, the ingredients are generated in the function of how many moves you make, but where there are too many ingredients needed when you run out of moves considering you didn't drop any ingredients, not all ingredients are present, forcing you to drop all the ingredients in the board to make a new one after one move. And it is really hard.

Empty Jelly Squares - Some levels do not spawn candies on jelly squares. Because most jelly levels have double jellies, it can be hard if a jelly square is cleared but there are no candies that will spawn on top of it. This is really what requires a bit of timing of special candies. Only striped candies of any kind or jelly fish can remove empty jelly squares. This makes a player aim and relies on the position of the candies. It is much harder if they are in the corners.

Notorious levels: 246, 256, 280, 414, and 597.

Aggressive Magic Mixers - They will produce blockers every 2-3 moves. Some levels even have them spawn blockers randomly. Imagine if there are a lot of blockers being created in any fashion.

Notorious levels: 1334, 1389, 1398, 1446, 1448, 1451, 1459, 1493

High Target Scores - Previously, in some levels, getting the non-score requirements are relatively easy, but getting the target score is the hard part. You would need a good Sugar Crush to pass the level. However, most levels rarely have this. Nowadays, you won't need to worry about the target score, as the game will boost your score if you fail to reach it.

Toffee Tornado - Before they were removed, these candies land on a random candy on each move, and make it very hard to plan on your moves, especially in order levels calling for a combination of 2 special candies (2 combinations) because sometimes they land on one of your special candies and you have to make it again. With them removed, a lot of levels have been redesigned.

Notorious levels (before they are removed): 414, 417, 419, 421, 425, and 432.

Unstable Moon Scale and/or Short Moon Struck - Before Dreamworld was removed, there was a Moon Scale to balance between two candies. Some levels were designed to have a lot of cascades or that the scale is unstable, thus forcing Odus, the owl, to fall, rendering a loss in a level. In some cases, moon struck/s only last for one move. This limits the safe period in creating special candy combinations, as doing these in regular moves may cause Odus to tip over, in most cases.

Players struggled in these levels, which had an unstable moon scale and/or a short moon struck.

Notorious Dreamworld levels: 24, 45, 54, 67, 68, 104, 123, 125, 141, 145, 163, 168, 202, 203, 163, 277, 311, 372, 383, 409, etc.

List of Hard Levels

You can find all hard levels defined by this wiki below:

• Category:Hard levels
• Category:Very hard levels
• Category:Extremely hard levels
• Category:Nearly impossible levels

Below is a list of hard levels defined by the game itself:

• Category:Hexagon levels
• Category:Super hard levels
• Category:Nightmarishly hard levels

Trivia

• The infamous level 65 began a trend when levels ending with "65" were considered a struggle by people. (e.g.: 65, 165, 265, 365, 465, and 565). The trend ends at level 665 as it is somewhat easy. Another trends are levels ending with "67", "77", "91", or "99". However, since nerfs have happened, most of these trends are no longer true.
• Most very hard, extremely hard, or nearly impossible levels are odd-numbered. However, in high levels, most to almost all the levels are very hard.
• Levels in the 1-2-3 series are "hard" when the level number is in odd numbers but "easy" when even. 123 is hard, 234 is very easy, 345 is hard, 456 is easy, 567 is very hard, 678 is somewhat easy, and 789 is hard. Nowadays, most of them are no longer true.
• The distribution of very hard episodes and levels shift time after time. In the early days of Candy Crush, hard levels were often in the 100's and 200's, but since then, they have become easy. Eventually, they shifted to the 1000's, but now they are not as problematic as they used to be. Currently, harder episodes/levels tend to be in the 2000s and 3000's. This explains why newer episodes are much harder than the older ones.
• The hardest levels range mainly from the mid-2000s to the 3000's. Much of the 4000's are typically easier than the 3000's.
• Most hard levels tend to be easy to earn two and three stars except for the Dreamworld levels.
• On Flash and HTML5 (since 1.60.0) has an icon of a hexagon. They are known as hexagon levels.