Water Sort Puzzle

What is Water Sort Puzzle?

Water Sort Puzzle is a colour sorting game played with a rack of glass tubes. Each tube starts holding a jumbled stack of coloured liquid, and your job is to pour between them until every tube holds one colour and nothing else. There is no timer and no way to lose, which is exactly why the format has spread so far: it sits somewhere between a logic puzzle and something to fidget with while you think about other things.

The rule that makes it a puzzle rather than busywork is the pouring restriction. You can only pour onto an empty tube or onto liquid of the same colour, and only the top band of a tube moves. That single constraint turns a simple sorting task into a genuine planning problem, because a careless pour can bury a colour you needed and leave you with nowhere to put anything.

How to play

1. Click or tap a tube to pick it up. The tube lifts to show it is selected.
2. Click a second tube to pour into it. The pour only works if that tube is empty or its top band matches the colour you are holding.
3. Every band of the same colour pours at once, as long as there is room for it.
4. A tube is finished when it holds four bands of one colour. It locks with a green rim so you know to leave it alone.
5. Sort every colour into its own tube to clear the level.

Tips and strategy

Most people lose a level in the first five moves, not the last five. A few habits fix that.

• Guard your empty tubes. They are the only place an awkward colour can go. Pouring a single band into an empty tube just to tidy the board is usually the move that costs you the level.
• Chase completions, not neatness. A tube holding three matching bands is worth more than four tubes holding two each, because finishing it frees the whole tube.
• Look at what is underneath. Before pouring onto a colour, check what that pour will expose in the source tube. The best move is often the one that uncovers a colour you already have a home for.
• Count before you commit. If three bands of a colour are showing across the board and the fourth is buried under two other colours, plan the dig before you start it.
• Undo is free. There is no penalty and no move limit, so experiment. Working out why a line failed teaches you the pattern faster than a hint does.

Difficulty modes and the daily puzzle

Easy runs four colours, normal six, hard eight, and expert ten. Every mode gives you two spare tubes to work with, plus one extra tube you can add mid-level if you get stuck. Levels are generated fresh and checked for a solution before they are handed to you, so no puzzle here is impossible.

The daily puzzle is the same board for everyone and changes at midnight UTC. Your best move count is saved in your browser for every level and every daily, so you can come back and try to beat it. Nothing is stored on a server and no account is needed.