# Candy Crush Saga

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Candy Crush Saga and 15 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Few recommend it, and mostly sarcastically: it is a well made scourge. Critics say it is preinstalled junkware that reinstalls itself and pushes frequent payments and ads.

## What people warn about

- Preinstalled, reinstalls itself after updates (8 comments): "there's a bunch of weird shit like Candy Crush or Copilot or whatever that's just decided to reinstall itself" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527353)) "shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757330)) "they had craps like Candy crush etc that comes back after large updates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465456))
- Low quality junkware and shovelware (4 comments): "shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757330)) "billion random junkware preinstalled like fucking Candy Crush" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49882472)) "Candy Crush is a vacuous waste of anyone's time and money" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47079317))
- Pay-to-play with frequent ads (4 comments): "the candy crush, perpetual enshittification, monetary maximalist approach, usually with negative side effects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49048196)) "changes game play to emulate games like Candy Crush where gamers have to pay every 30 seconds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147710)) "King (Candy Crush etc) and Mojang (Minecraft) are specifically called out as money-makers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48806782))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Outer Wilds](https://hackerapproved.com/p/outer-wilds.md): 65 recommend
- [enclose.horse](https://hackerapproved.com/p/enclose-horse.md): 64 recommend
- [The Witness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/witness.md): 60 recommend
- [Braid](https://hackerapproved.com/p/braid.md): 36 recommend
- [Blue Prince](https://hackerapproved.com/p/blue-prince.md): 30 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Candy Crush Saga", https://hackerapproved.com/p/candy-crush/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).