What you are trying to do
A Water Sort Puzzle board is a row of tall bottles. Each bottle holds four units of liquid, and each colour in the puzzle appears exactly four times — one full bottle's worth. At the start, the colours are mixed together, so a single bottle might hold pink, green, pink and yellow stacked on top of each other.
Your goal is to move liquid between bottles until every bottle contains only one colour (or nothing at all). There is no timer, no score to chase and no penalty for thinking. The only thing you can do is pour.
How a pour works
Liquid comes off the top of a bottle, never the middle. When you pour, the whole run of identical colour on top travels together, as much of it as fits:
| Source bottle (bottom → top) | Target bottle | Result |
|---|---|---|
| pink, green, green | green (1 unit) | Both green units move. Source keeps pink, target has three green. |
| pink, green, green, green | green, green, green (full-ish, 1 space) | Only one green moves. Two green stay behind — this is a partial pour. |
| pink, green | empty | The single green moves. Pink is now exposed on top of the source. |
| pink, green | yellow on top | Not allowed. Green cannot go on yellow. |
So a pour is legal when the target is empty or shows the same colour on top, and the target has at least one free unit. That is the entire rule set. The rules page covers the finer points, including why you should treat a completed bottle as sealed.
Controls on phone and computer
- Phone or tablet: tap the source bottle (it lifts), then tap the target bottle. Tap the lifted bottle again to cancel.
- Computer: the same two clicks. You can also Tab between bottles and press Enter.
- You never drag, and there is nothing to time. If a tap seems ignored, the message under the board explains why — usually an empty source or an illegal target.
Your first puzzle, move by move
Here is a small board written out. Each bottle is listed bottom to top, and the numbers are bottle positions:
1: cyan, pink, pink · 2: pink, cyan, cyan · 3: pink, cyan · 4: empty
- Pour 3 into 2. Bottle 3 has one cyan on top and bottle 2 shows cyan, so the cyan moves. Bottle 2 is now cyan, cyan, cyan on a pink base; bottle 3 is a single pink.
- Pour 1 into 3. The two pink units on top of bottle 1 land on the pink in bottle 3, which now holds three pink. Bottle 1 is a single cyan.
- Pour 1 into 4. That last cyan goes into the empty bottle. Bottle 1 is now completely empty — and an empty bottle is worth more than a tidy one.
- Pour 2 into 4. Three cyan units move across onto the cyan in bottle 4, filling it with four cyan. Bottle 2 is left with one pink.
- Pour 2 into 3. The last pink joins the other three. Every bottle now holds a single colour — solved.
Notice what did the work: move 1 exposed a buried pink, and move 3 bought back a completely empty bottle before it was needed. Those two ideas — exposing what you need and protecting free space — are the whole game.
Open the game from the Play page when you're ready; level 1 is built on the same shape as this example.
Undo, hint and extra bottle
- Undo reverses your last pour. Use it the moment you realise a pour cost you free space, not after five more moves.
- Hint tells you the first move of a real solution from your current board. If the board can no longer be solved, it says so — that is useful information in itself.
- Extra bottle gives you one more empty bottle for the level. It makes nearly any position easier, so try to solve without it first; the puzzle is more satisfying that way.
What to learn next
Once the basic loop feels comfortable, the next useful step is learning what to look at before pouring. Read the beginner's guide for the habits that carry you through the early levels, then the strategy guide for how to evaluate a board. If a specific level is blocking you, go to the level walkthroughs.