📜 About

About Trick or Trade

A one-day Halloween game for Sunday, 18 October 2026: 13 days before Halloween, in the week America's candy maps came out.

The idea

Every October the internet argues about a map: the most popular Halloween candy in every state. This year there are two, and they hardly agree. We wondered what happens if you put a kid from Wyoming (salt water taffy, says CandyStore.com) and a kid from Ohio (Blow Pops) on the same living-room floor on November 1st. So we built the post-Halloween candy trade as a puzzle game.

How The Swap works

Values are personal. Every piece in your bag has a value from 0 to 5 hearts, for you. Each trick-or-treater has secret values of their own, shaped by their home state's picks on both 2026 maps (rated very highly), a favorite candy category, a category they don't like, one candy they hate and a bit of randomness.
Kids only accept trades that help them (at least +1 by their own values; the Haggler wants +3). Little siblings just count pieces. Peanut allergies and sour-only kids have hard rules, which don't cost patience.
The bot. Every level is played in advance by a greedy bot trader. It looks at every 1–3-piece offer against every 1–2-piece request from each kid and makes the trade that helps it most, then repeats until bedtime. Its final score is par for 3 stars. Because it's greedy and never haggles with bigger bundles or plans for the Dad Tax, you can beat it.
Neighborhood joy adds up everyone's gains. A voluntary trade only happens when both sides come out ahead, so trading creates happiness rather than just moving it around. That's the oldest lesson in economics, taught by a kid in a T-rex costume.
Levels use fixed seeds, so everyone plays the same game and scores are comparable. Random Swap Meets carry their seed in the link you share.

The two candy maps

CandyStore.com (2026 report). A projection of the most popular Halloween candy by state, measured by weight of candy sold, built from 18 years of sales data (2008–2025) and data from manufacturers and distributors. It is a projection, not a count of 2026 sales. Its national top 10: M&M's, Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, Reese's Cups, NERDS Gummy Clusters, Hot Tamales, Starburst, Candy Corn, Hershey's Mini Bars, Butterfinger. M&M's and Sour Patch Kids each top ten states. Twelve states crowned a new No. 1 since the 2024 map, and seven of those swapped chocolate for something non-chocolate. CandyStore links the move toward fruity and sour treats to rising cocoa prices.

DoorDash (2026 map, October 2025 orders). Each state's candy is the one it orders at a higher rate than the rest of the country, not the one it orders most. That's why M&M's is No. 3 nationally but tops no state. Reese's is DoorDash's most-ordered Halloween candy for a third straight year. The map also shows old-school candy surging: Circus Peanuts +350%, Lemonheads +200%, Bit-O-Honey +180%, and full-size bars rising from 15% to 20% of Halloween orders.

Reports of the DoorDash map differ slightly for a few states (Massachusetts, Oregon, South Dakota). We use the version where Reese's leads 17 states, which matches DoorDash's own "17 states" figure.

Halloween 2026 by the numbers

The National Retail Federation expects a record $13.5 billion in Halloween spending, about $115.14 per person, with about $4.1 billion going on candy. 96% of shoppers plan to buy candy.
Candy prices were 7.7% higher in September than a year earlier, against 3.7% overall inflation (Newsweek, citing government price data).
A separate CandyStore.com survey named candy corn the worst Halloween candy of 2026, yet it is No. 8 in sales and wins three states.

Fine print

Kids' tastes, values and hauls in the game are made up. They're inspired by the real maps but they aren't data about real people or real states.
Candy Twin and the tier list's "mainstream meter" are for fun. They compare your picks with the public rankings above.
Brand names are used only to identify the candies. All candy illustrations are original, simplified drawings, not product photos or logos. No affiliation with any candy maker, CandyStore.com or DoorDash.
No trackers, no accounts. Progress, best scores and your lists are stored only in your browser (localStorage).

Sources

Candy history facts (launch years, makers and names) are well-documented brand histories.

Credits

Designed and built for dailyma.de, a new small web thing every day. Fonts: Lilita One and Nunito (Google Fonts). Everything else (code, candy art, levels) is original. Permanent address: dailyma.de/archive/2026-10-18/.

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