Sort Puzzle

How to play sort puzzle

1. Tap a bottle to lift what is on top of it. You pick up the whole run of the same colour sitting at the top, not a single block.
2. Tap a second bottle to pour. Blocks land in a bottle that is empty, or on a bottle whose top block is already the colour you are holding, and nowhere else.
3. A bottle holds four blocks. When the group you are pouring is bigger than the room left, as much as fits goes across and the rest stays behind, and that costs one move like any other pour.
4. A bottle is finished when it holds four blocks of one colour and none of them are face down. A finished bottle is closed: nothing pours back out of it.
5. From level eight, everything below the top block of a bottle starts face down. A face-down block cannot be lifted, a bottle holding one is not finished, and a block turns face up when it reaches the top of its bottle.
6. Sort every bottle and the next level deals. Level one has three colours and two spare bottles, a colour is added every second level up to eight, and from level twelve you get one spare bottle instead of two.

The two ways to play

What to do when you are stuck

• Treat the spare bottles as the scarce thing on the board. An empty bottle is the only place a colour can land on top of a different colour, and there are two of them until level twelve and one after that. A spare filled with one stray block is a spare no other colour can use until you empty it again.
• Count the room before you pour, because a partial pour costs a whole move. Tip a run of three onto a bottle with room for one and exactly one block moves, two stay behind, and the counter goes up by one either way. In the daily that arithmetic is the difference between finishing a board and running out.
• On the face-down boards from level eight, pouring blocks off a bottle is the only way to learn anything, since a block turns face up when it reaches the top. Pouring onto a bottle shows you nothing new. When two moves look equally good, take the one that empties blocks out of a bottle you cannot see into.
• In the daily, weigh an undo against the board. Taking a pour back and pouring again spends two of your hundred moves, while one more board sorted is worth a hundred points and every leftover move is worth one. Undo the mis-tap, not the plan.

Controls

• Tap or click a bottle to pick up its top group, then tap another bottle to pour. There is nothing to drag and nothing to hold down.
• Tap the bottle you are holding a second time to put it back down. Tap a bottle you cannot legally pour into and, if it has a group that can be lifted, it becomes the bottle you are holding instead, so a mis-tap costs you nothing.
• Every bottle is a button, so Tab reaches them and Enter or Space does what a tap does. Each one announces its number and how many blocks it holds, or that it is sorted.
• Undo takes back the last pour. In the daily the button is labelled Undo (1 move), because that is what pressing it costs; in free play it is free.
• Restart board deals another board at the level you are on. It appears in free play only.

Questions about sort puzzle

Do I need an account to play?

No. There is no account and nothing to sign in to. The one thing the game ever asks you to type is a name, and only when you choose to put a finished daily run on today's board.

Is there a timer?

No. Nothing here is timed and nothing is scored on how fast you play. The daily is limited by moves rather than minutes, one hundred of them for the whole run, with the counter showing how many are left. Free play counts the moves you have made and never takes the board away.

Can I get stuck, and can I lose?

You can get stuck, and in the daily that ends the run: it stops when the hundred moves are gone or when no pour is legal anywhere, and then it shows you what you scored. Free play has no ending of that kind. A stuck board there tells you so and waits, and undo or Restart board gets you out of it. The boards themselves are never dealt unsolvable, because each one is built backwards from the finished state, so the walk that made it is a way out of it. Painting yourself into a corner is still possible, and that is the game.

Does Sort Puzzle keep my level between visits?

Three things are kept in your browser: the highest level you have finished in free play, whether you have already put a score on today's board, and the name you typed the last time you posted one, so the box comes back with it already filled in. A board in progress is not saved, so closing the tab ends the run. A private window starts fresh, since there is nothing to read back.