Water Sort is the calm, clever pouring puzzle: coloured water is mixed up across glass tubes, and you pour it back until every tube holds one colour. You can play the water sort puzzle online free right here, with levels that start gentle and grow into proper brain teasers.
Every level starts with a set of tubes, each filled with four layers of mixed colours, plus two empty tubes. Your job is to sort them so each tube holds four layers of a single colour.
- Tap or click a tube to pick it up.
- Tap another tube to pour into it. Tap the same tube again to put it back down.
- You can only pour onto the same colour, or into an empty tube.
- The whole block of matching colour on top pours across, as much as fits. Each tube holds four layers.
- A tube with four layers of one colour gets a cork and is finished.
- Sort every colour to clear the level.
Only the top colour of a tube can move. If the top of a tube is two blues sitting on a red, pouring it moves both blues together, and the red stays behind. If the tube you pour into only has room for one more layer, only one blue goes across and the other stays put.
A pour is only allowed when the target tube is empty or its top layer is the same colour. If a pour is not allowed, the tube gives a small shake and nothing happens. Finished, corked tubes cannot be picked up again, so you never undo good work by accident.
If you reach a point where no pour is possible at all, the game tells you there are no moves left. You can then undo, restart or add an extra tube.
Level 1 has three colours and five tubes. A new colour is added every few levels: four colours from level 3, five from level 6, six from level 10, seven from level 15, and so on, up to twelve colours from level 55. Every level always has exactly two empty tubes to start with, so more colours means a much tighter puzzle.
Each level is checked by a solver before you see it, so every puzzle can be solved. Levels are also fixed: level 20 is the same board every time, for you and for everyone else. That makes it easy to replay a level for a better score or compare notes with a friend. Your progress and stars are saved in this browser.
You get five undos per level. Each undo takes back one pour and also takes one move off your count. Restart puts the level back to the start and refills your undos.
Once per level you can add one extra empty tube. It is a lifesaver on tough boards, but it costs you the top rating: a level finished with the extra tube can earn at most two stars.
Every level has a par, which is the number of pours our solver needed. Finish close to par, within about 15 percent of it, for three stars. Finish within about 60 percent over par for two stars. Anything more still clears the level with one star. Stars do not lock anything, so you can move on and come back to improve later.
Early levels can be solved by feel. From around eight colours onwards, a bit of planning helps a lot.
- Treat empty tubes as precious. Filling an empty tube with a single layer just to move it out of the way often leaves you stuck later.
- Before you pour into an empty tube, ask where that colour will go next. The best use of an empty tube is to collect a colour you can finish soon.
- Look at what is under the top layer. A pour that uncovers a colour you can immediately stack somewhere is worth more than one that uncovers a dead end.
- Pour whole blocks when you can. Moving two or three matching layers at once saves moves and keeps your star rating up.
- Finish one colour completely before spreading out. Every corked tube is one fewer tube to think about.
- Count the layers. Each colour has exactly four. If three greens are visible on top of different tubes, you know exactly where the fourth must come from.
- Use undo to explore. You have five per level, so try a line, and if it goes wrong, step back rather than restarting.
- Save the extra tube for when you are truly stuck. Restarting with a better plan often still earns three stars.
Some colours, like red and orange or sky and blue, can be hard to tell apart. Turn on colour-blind symbols from the toolbar and each colour gets its own shape, such as a circle, triangle or heart, drawn on every layer.
On a computer you can play with the keyboard: arrow keys move between tubes, Enter or Space picks up and pours, U undoes, R restarts, P pauses, and Esc puts a tube back down or pauses the game.