Play Water Sort Puzzle Online

Six tubes hold four colors of liquid. Two tubes start empty, giving you room to separate mixed layers. Pour only a matching top run into a free tube or onto a layer of the same color. The top layer determines every move, so study which colors sit buried before you fill a temporary tube.

1. Click a tube that contains liquid to select it.
2. Click an empty tube or one whose top layer matches the selected color.
3. The game pours as many matching top layers as will fit.
4. Keep transferring layers to expose buried colors.
5. Use Undo to reverse the last transfer when you block a color.
6. Finish when every nonempty tube holds four layers of a single color.
7. The starting mix contains four layers of each color and two empty tubes. Select a nonempty tube first, then a destination. The destination needs spare capacity and, unless empty, the same color on top. A pour can transfer multiple contiguous layers of one color, so read the visible top run before choosing a tube.
8. Think of an empty tube as workspace, not automatically as a permanent home for the first color you move. A matching top layer elsewhere often gives you a better destination and saves that empty tube. After every pour, look at which color became visible at the source. That newly exposed layer may enable the next transfer and explain why the previous move helped.

• A tube holds at most four layers.
• Only the top contiguous run of one color can move.
• A pour into a nonempty tube requires matching top colors.
• Empty tubes can accept any top color. All completed tubes contain just one color.
• A legal transfer may stop early when its destination fills. For example, if a tube has room for just one layer, only one layer moves even when two matching layers sit on top of the source. That can leave the source partially blocked. The game ends only when each occupied tube has four identical layers.

• Keep at least one empty tube available while breaking up mixed stacks.
• Collect a nearly finished color before moving a different color onto its destination.
• Study several top layers ahead; the first available pour may hide a more useful one.
• A matching destination with too little space may split a top run. Count capacity first.
• Use Undo after a move that leaves no path to the next buried color.

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• The visible layers make planning accessible without a timer.
• Undo makes a failed experiment easy to examine.
• Water Sort shows a useful distinction between legal and helpful moves. Many transfers satisfy the color rule, but filling an empty tube with the wrong run can remove the workspace needed later. Undo lets you compare two branches from the same arrangement. The board has no countdown, so you can pause to inspect the layers.

Play Water Sort free in your browser. Start the interactive board above, use its on-screen controls and check the rules below when a deduction gets stuck. No download or account is needed.

Try another round of Water Sort on the board above. Start with the most constrained part of the grid, test each move against the stated rules, and use the reset control to try a new approach.

• How to play Water Sort Puzzle