How to play Water Sort
Make five full tubes of a single colour, leaving two empty.
Rules for the Solve Meadow edition. Examples are constructed lessons, not today's answers. How these guides are made.
Make your first move
Tap the tube to pour from, then the tube to pour into.
Tap a source tube, then a destination. You can pour onto the same top colour or into an empty tube. The entire top run moves, up to the available space. Each colour also has a number. Finish with five full single-colour tubes and two empty tubes. Undo and Restart retain your move count. The target is a computer-found solution, not a proven minimum. Score is target ÷ actions × 100, capped at 100, minus 15 per hint. A hint search may run out of its budget; this does not prove the position impossible.
A quick example
A top run of blue can pour onto blue or into an empty tube if there is room.
Read a pour from the top down
Imagine a four-capacity source tube containing red, red, blue, blue from bottom to top. A destination tube contains two blue units and has two empty spaces.
- Select the source, then the destination. Their top colours match and the destination has enough room.
- Both top blue units pour together. The destination becomes a full blue tube and the source exposes its red units.
- Plan a destination for the exposed red before using your last empty tube. Empty tubes give you room to rearrange other colours.
Only the top colour can move. You cannot pour blue onto red, and a destination cannot exceed its capacity. The displayed target is a computer-found solution, not a proven shortest solution.
Does Undo erase a move from my scored effort?
No. Undo can help you explore a different route, but it does not remove the effort already counted for scoring.
Common mistake
Only the top colour moves. A matching run pours together. Undo does not erase scored effort.
Strategy to try
- Keep an empty tube available when possible. It gives you room to expose colours buried beneath another run.
- A pour moves a matching top run up to the destination capacity. Plan where the newly exposed colour can go before filling your last empty tube. Undo is available, but it does not remove scored effort.
Daily play and practice
The daily board changes at midnight UTC. Your first completed daily score is saved in this browser. Practice starts a separate round without replacing that result. There is no account or subscription required; JavaScript is needed to play. Progress is device-local and clearing browser data removes it.
Try the idea in a real game
Practice lets you explore the controls before attempting the shared daily round.