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Tips on how to get the best out of the mid section of the game (the ones designed by real people)

Here comes my take on the glorious mid section of Candy Crush, those levels that are still allowed to exist after years and years. Some players really struggle with these because they were fed a different style of level from the start, but these levels are good, and these episodes can be beaten (i.e. you can win more gold from the race than you spent). There is no reason to drop out of this game just because you have hit levels that cannot be beaten by super colour bomb combos.

I do understand we all have different playing styles. Players used to bashing their way out of all levels with boosters and double colour bomb combos probably should turn away now. If you are out to get the highest win streak at all costs and are not prepared to let go of that, also: Look away now.

I am of the old school and this thread will be about how to play these levels the way that the humans who designed them intended, not how the AI has changed them. In many cases the human designed algorithms are the easier ones and to find them for me is the key to pass these levels and episodes.

Most of these levels are both enjoyable and easy once you realise that to pass them you need a "lucky board". Lucky boards are definitely still written into these levels, but sometimes you need some patience to get there. You need to learn how to recognise a lucky board. And you need to take advantage of one when you get it. I will show you some telltale signs and some examples will follow.

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Comments

christinewupp

Update for September 2025. From this week I have noted the following (regarding super hard, nighmarish or legendary levels):

hinted moves are almost always leading us to a fail situation
making combos with fish in the early part or mid section almost always leads to a fail situation
if you want to get lucky and pass with no extra boosters playing starting boosters is very helpful. Get them from the daily treat machine (my game usually awards timed colour bombs) and get timed wrap&stripe from the 40 pin sparks box
the last five moves often involve the jelly fish to get a pass
wrap + stripe combos often help pass levels (more often than usual I find)

Here is an example I have just played. Super hard level. I had a full candy necklace with all the boosters but failed on my first two attempts.

Third attempt was the train offer. I played the recommended moves, which were fish heavy. No success.

Fourth attempt was the win streak retrieval offer. I played all three starting boosters.

I played the best old fashioned moves: make special candies, make moves that hit the most blockers. Opened up one side of the board to get the stripes down and try to get combos with wraps that fall next to them. Ignoring the fish.

So by 4 moves left I have my wrap+stripe combo. Two of them in fact! I choose the one better one of course that will hit the bubble gum.

The game creates a fish. This fish is likely to help me. At this point I look for the winning move, as I expect there to be one.

There is: match the three orange above the fish.

Now when I match the reds the wrap will set off the fish and the fish will go for the last jelly.

christinewupp

Ah, my post finally got approved! Good that I didn't rewrite it because as you can see it's very long.

In fact the new changes to the candy necklace and the general rewriting of the algorithms has made it even more obvious that for many levels in the mid range of Candy Crush it may be a better strategy to avoid the fish and avoid too many boosters on your starting board. These can be counterproductive with these older boards. Playing with starting boosters only, or without boosters entirely can make some boards easier to pass.

In the most recent levels I have played when I have had a starting board full of boosters it can be quite hard to know which combo to pick. Such as here:

I would definitely NOT recommend moving candies to create a double colour bomb combo on these boards now. The most recent changes have made these combos much less reliable than they used to be. Instead I often choose the wrap+stripe combo now. On this board above it did lead to good cascades and helped me pass this level.

Any level with keys and sour skulls: Double colour bomb combos are not always the best first move.

Wrap + stripe combos are often the best first move.

christinewupp

Being inspired by this finding that lucky boards are still out there I have tried my luck at another level, level 9860 where my sadly missed friend @zeus77 is sitting, which alerted me to this one. It is an end of episode super hard one, but with the recent games replacing end of episode levels with Alien Invasions or Midsummer Meltdowns etc few players would in fact be playing this level at all. But I really like it as it is great to study, and it has the frog!

It's got the benefit of having starting boosters locked and the first three moves are all double colour bomb combos set in stone, so there is nothing anyone can do but wait for a lucky board. This level is a great example of an older, human written algorithm, as are many other frog levels.

The first three moves are set. You have no choice by to play colour bomb combos and hit keys. After this you need to hit the sour skulls:

The above was my lucky board, which I got on my third attempt. There were some wrapped candies causing a cascade on my third colour bomb combo and this opened up the board and hit the first sour skull already.

Now I am being very careful to make the best available move, such as bringing down vertical striped candies from the dispensers above the skulls. I try to play the old original version of this board as I hope it will help me pass the old fashioned way using the frog. So I never actively create or make a match with the new jelly fish. On an old fashioned lucky board those are wasted moves. This is one such move: The game is hinting for me to create a jelly fish with the four blue candies near the top left. I ignore that move and continue with my previous strategy. I don't know if the outcome would have been the same or better had I made that match, but I decided to match the vertical blue candies instead, because I believe this is an older algorithm and the match four did not exist when this algorithm was written, so I fear making such a match may interfere with and break my lucky board.

I manage to free the frog and the rainbow twist with seven moves remaining. This proved to be early enough to pass the level:

The orange wrap helps clear the twists in no time and leave me with a chance to charge the frog as well.

I decide to try my luck here though by matching the three purple candies to bring the wrap and stripe together for a combo.

This is what I love about the old fashioned, human, algorithms: I know I am in luck here because the combo did not explode. I have found this so many times: If you have a lucky board and you pick the right move (a leap of faith because you can see the chance to make a combo, and surely this move is what is written into the board) then I will not get blocked. So the combo is the move to make now and I can be confident that I will pass. I am on a "win" board.

Now the really interesting thing here is that the jelly fish do NOT go for the jelly inside the liquorice fence. I had a few jelly fish and none of them went that way, leaving that square for the frog. It's the move I make now, and pass on my last move.

The double stripe combo allows me to pass. Not a jelly fish in sight here, because when this winning lucky board algorithm was written there were no jelly fish in this level.

This is what I am trying to say here with this thread. There are older human written fun and satisfying boards still in the game. But the AI is eroding them gradually.

When these fun boards are gone so will I. Unfortunately a lot of them are hidden at the end of episodes and it may be the very reason why the game keeps replacing these with event ones it can control.

We really have our work cut out fishing for the fishless levels now, so to speak.

christinewupp

You are absolutely kidding me. My last post went for approval? Well, never mind, I'll wait. It's bound to get approved and added here at some point. @LoFiGummy please could you find my post and approve it? It was a lovely run down of level 9860. Such a beauty….

christinewupp

I was looking for lucky board solutions and have been hitting walls left right and centre. I even thought they had been written out of the game (out of super hard/nightmarish/legendary levels) entirely. But I have found one on checking out a level for a player in Support. I had to play the level 51 times to get there, but I'll copy the post here just to show the beautiful outcome I got. With a lot of retrying. I only played the three starting boosters on my 51st attempt. I think once you have tried a level that often the game may reward players with a an old-fashioned lucky board when they choose to play starting boosters after many tries without them. I stand by my usual advice to not use starting boosters on every single attempt of apparently impossible levels, unless you have timed ones, or hundreds of them.

Here a copy of my post about level 3469:

After 50 attempts with only the colour bomb I gave up and added the other two starting boosters. I am not sure if this triggered it, but I suddenly got lucky on the next, 51st attempt:

I have even two good options now. And look: the elusive double colour bomb combo shows up, just because I played all three starting boosters? This does go to show that the game senses what boosters we play and assigns us the board accordingly.

I get luck on this board with almost every move. This is the result after striking the double colour bomb combo, which immediately gives me a second coconut wheel!

I continue with my favourite method of creating any wrap or stripe I can see. I am also careful to use the coconut wheels to their best potential. Here for example:

I can strike it downwards to free the first dragon, clear the marmalade and hit the mixers all in one go.

Now the game rewards me with the chance to make another colour bomb by matching the five orange at the top. I don't yet know what it's good for, but with 10 moves left I always take every chance to make a special candy. always. That's how a true lucky board works and this is one of those. So they do still exist 😅

Look at the lovely result.

Now the 9 moves or less point is reached where I always slow down and think. And I spot a great move here: If I match the three purple candies underneath the colour bomb (that I got as a free gift out of nowhere) I can create a colour bomb + stripe combo:

These moves are clearly the ones that were written into the game as a winner. The last dragon isn't even on the board yet, I have eight moves left to clear the board, but look at the surprising outcome as I strike the combo:

It happened so quickly I couldn't even take any screenshots!

christinewupp

The old YouTube videos by Suzy Fuller and Johnny Crush are sadly of the wrong level number now, so players cannot access them easily any more, which is a shame because those are very educational.

All levels up to at least level 10,000 have a "without boosters" solution. A lot go them, even the hardest ones, can be beaten without any boosters.

There are also "with starting boosters" solutions.

These solutions are still in the game, and they can be found if you replay the level enough times. The boards rewritten by the AI often will leave players one booster or 5 moves short. This is a psychological trick the game now plays on us to make players spend gold, boosters and money. But the true old "without boosters" or "with starting boosters" lucky boards are different. Often they take several attempts to find but they can just be so much more satisfying to play.

Creating jelly fish or making combos with jelly fish are not part of these older solutions, so I avoid moves that involve jelly fish.

Telltale signs of a lucky board:

The first few moves:

If you get a chance to create or use a colour bomb + wrap or stripe combo in your first few moves, to hit through a lot of blockers.
When using starting boosters if the colour bomb is sitting next to your striped or wrapped candy.
If you get candies the correct colour to get to the keys or sour skulls in your first few moves.
If you make a move the game recommends and get a cascade of candies exploding.
If the game gives you good chances to create special candies

Often after the first few moves the opportunities dry up. In such cases you do not have a lucky board. You will not pass no matter what strategy you use. My advice would be to play to the end, so that the moves offered for your retry will keep increasing but don't waste boosters on a hopeless board.

The mid section:

If after the first few moves you continue to get chances to create striped or wrapped candies, or colour bombs, then you might have a lucky board. On such boards you need to make every single wrap, stripe or colour bomb you see. Ignore fish combos, because those are not part of the original algorithm. Just concentrate on any chance you get to make a combo with a colour bomb and stripe or wrap, or a wrap + stripe combo. These are usually key to winning any level. There is rarely a reason to overthink this middle section of the level.

The last 5-7 moves:

If you did get lucky chances in the mid section, then there is usually a winning solution still in there, even if the chances seem to dry up. So when you get to the last 5-7 moves you need to pause and look closely at the board. This is the time to use your thinking hat and not rush. Trust the game: If you have been lucky this far then if you make the right moves at the end the candies the game will drop for you are often the colour that you need. I often find that I pass on the last two moves just because of "luck" and I can usually predict if this is going to happen.

Comments

christinewupp

Update for September 2025. From this week I have noted the following (regarding super hard, nighmarish or legendary levels):

hinted moves are almost always leading us to a fail situation
making combos with fish in the early part or mid section almost always leads to a fail situation
if you want to get lucky and pass with no extra boosters playing starting boosters is very helpful. Get them from the daily treat machine (my game usually awards timed colour bombs) and get timed wrap&stripe from the 40 pin sparks box
the last five moves often involve the jelly fish to get a pass
wrap + stripe combos often help pass levels (more often than usual I find)

Here is an example I have just played. Super hard level. I had a full candy necklace with all the boosters but failed on my first two attempts.

Third attempt was the train offer. I played the recommended moves, which were fish heavy. No success.

Fourth attempt was the win streak retrieval offer. I played all three starting boosters.

So by 4 moves left I have my wrap+stripe combo. Two of them in fact! I choose the one better one of course that will hit the bubble gum.

The game creates a fish. This fish is likely to help me. At this point I look for the winning move, as I expect there to be one.

There is: match the three orange above the fish.

Now when I match the reds the wrap will set off the fish and the fish will go for the last jelly.

christinewupp

Ah, my post finally got approved! Good that I didn't rewrite it because as you can see it's very long.

In the most recent levels I have played when I have had a starting board full of boosters it can be quite hard to know which combo to pick. Such as here:

Any level with keys and sour skulls: Double colour bomb combos are not always the best first move.

Wrap + stripe combos are often the best first move.

christinewupp

The first three moves are set. You have no choice by to play colour bomb combos and hit keys. After this you need to hit the sour skulls:

I manage to free the frog and the rainbow twist with seven moves remaining. This proved to be early enough to pass the level:

The orange wrap helps clear the twists in no time and leave me with a chance to charge the frog as well.

I decide to try my luck here though by matching the three purple candies to bring the wrap and stripe together for a combo.

The double stripe combo allows me to pass. Not a jelly fish in sight here, because when this winning lucky board algorithm was written there were no jelly fish in this level.

This is what I am trying to say here with this thread. There are older human written fun and satisfying boards still in the game. But the AI is eroding them gradually.

We really have our work cut out fishing for the fishless levels now, so to speak.

christinewupp

Here a copy of my post about level 3469:

After 50 attempts with only the colour bomb I gave up and added the other two starting boosters. I am not sure if this triggered it, but I suddenly got lucky on the next, 51st attempt:

I get luck on this board with almost every move. This is the result after striking the double colour bomb combo, which immediately gives me a second coconut wheel!

I continue with my favourite method of creating any wrap or stripe I can see. I am also careful to use the coconut wheels to their best potential. Here for example:

I can strike it downwards to free the first dragon, clear the marmalade and hit the mixers all in one go.

Look at the lovely result.

It happened so quickly I couldn't even take any screenshots!

christinewupp

The old YouTube videos by Suzy Fuller and Johnny Crush are sadly of the wrong level number now, so players cannot access them easily any more, which is a shame because those are very educational.

All levels up to at least level 10,000 have a "without boosters" solution. A lot go them, even the hardest ones, can be beaten without any boosters.

There are also "with starting boosters" solutions.

Creating jelly fish or making combos with jelly fish are not part of these older solutions, so I avoid moves that involve jelly fish.

Telltale signs of a lucky board:

The first few moves:

If you get a chance to create or use a colour bomb + wrap or stripe combo in your first few moves, to hit through a lot of blockers.
When using starting boosters if the colour bomb is sitting next to your striped or wrapped candy.
If you get candies the correct colour to get to the keys or sour skulls in your first few moves.
If you make a move the game recommends and get a cascade of candies exploding.
If the game gives you good chances to create special candies

The mid section:

The last 5-7 moves: