Cocktail Mixing Game runs on five layered rules: enter three integer values from 0 to 10 across Lumen Drop, Cloud Ribbon, and Comet Fizz; reject the (0, 0, 0) tuple as invalid; judge your mix against the visible three-part target's proportional shares; pass when the summed percentage-point gap is 6.00 or less and earn 200 minus a rounded-deviation penalty; and end the run on a second distinct above-threshold attempt, because a single miss can still be repaired. Five rounds of perfect matches combine for exactly 1,000 points, while any accepted near-match produces a lower final total. The judgment function is identical whether you submit through the on-screen Shake button, the Enter key, or the Space bar, so the rules never shift based on how you press them. Each round openly displays its current target and its own proportions, while later briefs and their values stay sealed until play reaches them.
The Five Core Rules at a Glance
The rules do not behave like overlapping layers — they form a single chain from input to outcome. Here is the complete rule list condensed into one reference frame:
- Input rule: Set Lumen Drop, Cloud Ribbon, and Comet Fizz to integer values in the inclusive range 0 through 10.
- Validity rule: The tuple (0, 0, 0) is rejected as invalid and cannot be submitted.
- Judge rule: The game converts both your actual amounts and the visible target parts to proportional shares, sums the absolute share gaps in percentage points, and accepts totals no greater than 6.00.
- Score rule: An accepted mix earns max(0, 200 − round(total deviation × 10)), so a perfect 0.00-point match earns 200 and five of those hit exactly 1,000.
- Miss rule: The game reduces each above-threshold attempt by its greatest common divisor before storing a signature, so a single distinct above-threshold ratio can still be repaired, while a second distinct above-threshold ratio deadlocks the run until Restart.
Each rule depends on the previous one: a rejected input never reaches the judge, a miss signature only forms after the threshold check, and a deadlock only forms once the signature store holds two distinct entries. Play the rules in order and the chain stays reproducible from the visible target alone.
Working Through One Round From Target to Score
The fastest way to internalize the rules is to trace one round from opening the panel to the verdict. You can open Cocktail Mixing Game directly and follow the same path on any device. The round then unfolds in this order:
- Read the current visible three-stream target at the top of the board. Three numbers, separated clearly, give you the proportions you are trying to match — the names Lumen Drop, Cloud Ribbon, and Comet Fizz are invented zero-proof game tokens, not real ingredients.
- Pick integer values from 0 through 10 for each slider using the native range controls. Keyboard arrows, pointer drag, and touch input all feed the same controlled values, so the input rule does not depend on how you interact.
- Watch the live panel update as you adjust. It shows your reduced ratio, each component percentage-point gap, the total deviation, and your projected round score, all driven by the same judgment function every action shares.
- Avoid the all-zero tuple (0, 0, 0); it is flagged as invalid. Any non-zero mix of zeros and integers is acceptable, including three identical values like 5:5:5, which would only score if the target itself were a clean 1:1:1.
- Trigger the judge with the Shake button, the Enter key, or the Space bar. All three inputs run the same pure judgment function, so the result is reproducible from the visible target and your slider values alone.
- Read the verdict on the panel. If the total deviation is 6.00 or less, you earn 200 minus the rounded ten-times deviation; if it is above 6.00, the round counts as a miss and you keep adjusting without losing the round.
- Adjust until either you accept a passing mix (which clears miss history and opens the next brief) or until you accumulate a second distinct above-threshold attempt (which deadlocks the run until Restart).
- Use Restart from a deadlock or after completing all five rounds to return to the first visible target, zero inputs, no misses, and a zero score.
Input Validation: Where the 0 to 10 Range Comes From
Every subsequent rule starts with the input range, so the boundary on the sliders is worth understanding precisely. The native range controls only allow integers from 0 through 10 on each of the three streams, and the game treats the resulting tuple as the actual values the reducer judges. There is no hidden second solution field — what you submit is what gets evaluated.
This range gives 11 distinct values per stream, and the game normalizes submitted amounts by their greatest common divisor before judging. Scalar equivalents collapse to the same reduced ratio: 2:3:5 and 4:6:10 produce identical deviation because both reduce to 2:3:5, and a 0:0:0 tuple is rejected even though all three zeroes fall inside the slider range. The following properties summarize how the input rule behaves:
| Input property | Rule | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Each stream | Integer 0–10 | Native range slider, no decimals |
| Tuple (0, 0, 0) | Rejected as invalid | Cannot be submitted at all |
| Scalar equivalents (2:3:5, 4:6:10) | Judged as identical | Same deviation, same score |
| Three identical values (5:5:5) | Allowed | Scores only if target is 1:1:1 |
| Second hidden solution field | None | Submitted values are the actual values |
The native Arrow-key behavior is preserved on the range controls, so keyboard navigation works exactly as a standard slider. Pointer drag and touch input both feed the same controlled numbers, so the input rule does not depend on which interaction style you choose.
The Share Comparison Method, Explained
Comparison is the heart of the rules, and tracing through the math shows why two different value sets can produce identical scores. The game divides each of your actual amounts by the total of your three amounts, and it divides each target part by the total of the three target parts. For each stream it then takes the absolute gap between those two shares and multiplies by 100 to express it in percentage points. The total proportional deviation is the sum of the three component gaps.
Because both sides are normalized before subtraction, the comparison is scale-independent: 2:3:5 and 4:6:10 reduce to the same 0.20, 0.30, 0.50 share set, so they produce 0.00 percentage-point deviation against any target that is a clean multiple of 2:3:5. The 0.00 anchor matters because anything scaling the same way is judged as an exact match, including a true zero-only input is invalid, while 2:3:5 and 4:6:10 both yield 0.00 deviation.
To see the method working, consider a target of 2:3:5 and an actual mix of 4:6:9:
- Actual shares: 4/19 ≈ 21.05%, 6/19 ≈ 31.58%, 9/19 ≈ 47.37%.
- Target shares: 2/10 = 20.00%, 3/10 = 30.00%, 5/10 = 50.00%.
- Absolute gaps: about 1.05% + 1.58% + 2.63% = about 5.26 percentage points.
- Score: 200 − round(5.26 × 10) = 200 − 53 = 147 points.
This is the same 147-point near-match the verification oracle checks, so the math is reproducible by hand. Because the total deviation is 5.26, well below the 6.00 cap, the mix passes; if it had been 6.01 or more, the same inputs would have registered as a miss instead.
Pass or Miss: How the 6.00 Threshold and Score Formula Interact
The 6.00 percentage-point threshold and the score formula are two halves of the same outcome rule, so they are best read together. A total proportional deviation of 6.00 or less passes; anything above 6.00 misses and earns no points for the round. On a pass, the round score is computed as max(0, 200 − round(totalDeviation × 10)), where the rounded-deviation penalty is the integer nearest to totalDeviation × 10. A perfect 0.00 deviation passes with the full 200 points, and a deviation of 6.00 lowers that to 200 − 60 = 140. Any deviation above 20.00 would push the score below 0 in arithmetic, but the cap is enforced first: a deviation above 6.00 is a miss before any score computation runs.
| Total deviation (pp) | Verdict | Round score |
|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | Pass | 200 |
| 5.26 (sample) | Pass | 147 |
| 6.00 | Pass (boundary) | 140 |
| 6.01 | Miss | 0 |
The boundary matters because 6.00 passes and 6.01 does not, so a near-miss at 5.99 still earns 140 points while one decimal over the threshold collapses the round score to zero. The maximum perfect round score is therefore five times 200 for exactly 1,000 points, with every accepted near-match producing a smaller final total.
Miss Logic, Repair Windows, and Deadlock
The miss rule is the only rule where context matters: a single above-threshold attempt is repairable, but a second distinct one is not. When a submitted mix exceeds 6.00 percentage points, the game reduces the three integers by their greatest common divisor before storing the attempt as a normalized signature. That normalization is why submitting 4:6:10 on the very first attempt and 2:3:5 on the next is treated as repeating the same miss — both share the signature 2:3:5, even though the raw slider values are different.
Repair works because a single recorded signature does not consume the run. You can adjust the sliders, re-enter the target proportions more carefully, and submit a corrected ratio; if the new mix passes, the panel clears the stored miss and opens the next round with a fresh history. The first miss becomes a free lesson rather than a penalty, and accepted mixes clear the current miss history entirely.
Deadlock arrives once you record two distinct normalized above-threshold signatures. A second different ratio — for example, submitting 6:1:3 after a first miss on 4:6:9, with neither sharing a greatest common divisor on the original after normalization — closes the run until Restart. The panel freezes the verdict display, and Shake no longer judges until you use the Restart control to restore the first visible target, zero inputs, no misses, and a zero score.
Boss Mode, Restart, and What Freezes the Judge
Two controls affect whether the judge runs at all, and both deserve a brief rule summary. The shared Boss control covers the interface after a double Escape, which is the standard hotkey for quickly hiding an in-progress screen. Because a visual overlay alone does not disable focused native controls, the game explicitly blocks slider updates, Shake, and Restart while the Boss screen exists, so no input can leak through while the overlay is open.
Restart restores the deterministic starting state: the first visible target returns to the top of the panel, all three sliders reset to 0, the stored miss history clears, and the score returns to 0. Because completed and deadlocked states also freeze judging, you cannot alter the final score by toggling sliders after the run has ended — Restart is the only way out of either frozen state.
The touch-size controls, text-only interface, and React state do not change the rule chain; they only change how the inputs reach the same judgment function. Verification owns an independent literal list of every visible target plus an independent share-error oracle that checks greatest-common-divisor normalization, scalar equivalence, invalid values, 0.00-point and boundary behavior, the 147-point near-match example, above-threshold misses, equivalent-miss deduplication, repair, second-distinct deadlock, terminal immutability, Boss guards, deterministic Restart, and five perfect rounds totaling exactly 1,000 — so every visible outcome is reproducible from the same input on any machine.
Related reading: Color Mixing Game Rules: How Scoring and Misses Work.
Related reading: Counting Blocks Puzzle Rules: Scores, Layers, and Errors.