A color sort game is a browser puzzle where you pour colored liquids between stacked tubes until every tube holds a single color, and Water Sort Puzzle fixes that experience to five tubes, three colors labeled A, B, and T, and a 10-pour minimum that an independent breadth-first search has confirmed. Only the top color of each tube is accessible; everything underneath stays sealed until the layer above it moves away. The goal is simple in form and strict in rule: end with three full monochrome tubes and two empty tubes, and the game rewards you with exactly 1,000 points. Because the board is published, the colors are lettered, and the score is fixed, every claim about the puzzle is checkable rather than hand-waved.
Searchers who type "color sort game" usually want one of two things: a quick game they can play right now, or a color sort puzzle they can finish in a sitting without installing anything. Water Sort Puzzle is built for both. It opens in any modern browser, loads instantly on mobile hardware, and never asks for an account, a download, or a payment. The fixed board keeps the challenge fair, the controls stay accessible from the first tap, and the verified shortest route gives solvers a concrete efficiency target instead of an arbitrary difficulty curve.
The Fixed Board and What This Color Sort Game Holds
The board in Water Sort Puzzle is published down to the unit, so a reader can reproduce it on paper or in another program. Five tubes sit in a row. Three of them start completely full with four liquid units each, and the remaining two start empty. Amber, blue, and teal each appear four times across the full board, which means the puzzle conserves a total of 12 units from the first frame to the last. Nothing new is added, and nothing leaks away. The letters A, B, and T are printed inside each liquid layer, so the state never depends on how well you can tell amber from teal on a small phone screen.
Tubes are written from bottom to top. Reading them out makes the starting arrangement explicit:
| Tube | Starting contents (bottom to top) | Initial fullness |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A, B, T, A | 4 of 4 |
| 2 | T, A, B, T | 4 of 4 |
| 3 | B, T, A, B | 4 of 4 |
| 4 | — | 0 of 4 (empty) |
| 5 | — | 0 of 4 (empty) |
That disclosure makes every test and claimed solution reproducible. Reloading the page does not silently swap in an easier board, and no remote level service changes the answer behind the scenes.
How a Pour Works in This Color Sort Puzzle
A tube behaves like a stack: only its top color is reachable. To pour, you choose a non-empty source tube, then a different destination tube. The destination must be empty, or its top color must match the source top color, and it must have free capacity. A pour then transfers the connected run of the same color sitting at the source top. If the destination cannot hold the entire run, only the amount that fits moves. A destination that can hold the entire run empties the source of that color block and clears the way for whatever sits beneath it. Moves that violate any of those conditions are illegal and never mutate the board, the move counter, or the score.
How to Play the Color Sort Puzzle Step by Step
- Pick the tube you want to pour from. It must contain at least one unit of liquid.
- Pick a destination tube. It must be empty, or its top color must match the source top color, and it must still have free capacity.
- Watch the connected same-color run at the source top transfer to the destination. The legal move counter increments by one.
- Treat the two empty tubes as workspace and keep amber, blue, and teal conserved at four units each as you go.
- Press U to undo the last legal pour if a move hides the only available match; press R to restart the published starting board at any time.
- Finish with three full monochrome tubes and two empty tubes to earn exactly 1,000 points.
For a first solve, protect at least one empty tube and look for a top color that can expose a useful match. If a move hides the only available workspace, undo before committing another pour.
The 10-Pour Minimum and What It Means for Your Solve
An independent oracle represents the colors as single letters, implements its own top-run and capacity operations, and runs its own breadth-first queue. It returns the same 10-pour minimum that the production solver finds, which is the strongest possible check that the published route is real. A second exhaustive traversal reaches 2,721 labeled states, counts 12,792 directed legal transitions, and finds 60 solved labelings. Sixty is expected because the three named color tubes and two empty tube positions may be permuted across five labeled positions.
The deterministic first route is Tube 1 to 4, Tube 2 to 1, Tube 3 to 2, Tube 3 to 4, Tube 1 to 3, Tube 2 to 1, Tube 2 to 4, Tube 3 to 2, Tube 1 to 3, and Tube 1 to 4. That sequence is one valid shortest solution, not the only valid solution. The formal Water Sort mechanics are described in the FUN 2022 sorting paper, and the destination rule, whole-run behavior, four-unit tube convention, and monochrome completion condition are confirmed by the independent Play Water Sort how-to-play guide. A longer legal completion still earns the same 1,000-point reward, so the 10-pour target is an efficiency hint rather than a hidden penalty for going slower.
Controls: Touch, Mouse, Keyboard, and Boss Key
The same board works across input styles, and the controls line up like this:
| Input | Select a tube | Cancel or restart | Extra shortcuts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Touch or mouse | Tap a tube to choose it as source, then tap a destination | Tap the source again to cancel; on-screen Undo and Restart buttons | Source selection visibly marked until cleared |
| Keyboard | Arrow Left or Up moves the cursor to the previous tube; Right or Down moves to the next; Enter or Space activates the cursor tube | U undoes the last legal pour; R restarts the board | Number keys 1 to 5 activate a tube directly; cursor wraps between ends |
| Boss key | Double-Escape swaps the puzzle for a neutral spreadsheet view; the same gesture restores the same puzzle state |
Every tube is a native button with a touch-friendly target, and its accessible label states the entire content from bottom to top. Number keys 1 through 5 activate a tube directly, which means an entire solution can be entered without ever touching a pointer. Responsive five-column controls use shrink-safe labels and compact spacing to avoid horizontal page overflow at a 390-pixel viewport.
Illegal Attempts, Undo, Restart, and the Two-Error Rule
Choosing an empty source, targeting a full tube, or targeting a different top color leaves every tube and the legal move count unchanged. The live feedback names the exact problem so you can correct course on the spot. The first illegal attempt is repairable: choose a legal source and destination and continue from the identical board. A second illegal attempt deadlocks that run until Restart. This two-error limit is a clearly disclosed product behavior rather than a rule from the external references. Undo reverses only the most recent legal pour, restoring the earlier tube arrangement, move count, and mistake count recorded before that move; it cannot invent or remove liquid. Restart is broader and restores all 12 units to the published starting tubes, clears selection and history, returns the cursor to Tube 1, and resets score, moves, mistakes, completion, and feedback.
Scoring, Privacy, and What This Color Sort Game Is Not
Any legal route that reaches the solved condition earns exactly 1,000 points. The reward does not depend on speed or a hidden move penalty, which keeps the win condition understandable and avoids presenting the score as a standardized measure of reasoning ability. This puzzle is recreational entertainment. It is not an intelligence test, aptitude measure, classroom placement tool, psychological instrument, hiring screen, or health assessment. Familiarity with color sort patterns changes performance, Undo is deliberately available, and a key slip may count as an illegal attempt. Everything runs locally in the browser. No puzzle state, move history, score, or input is uploaded, no account is required, no paid API is contacted, and no new runtime dependency is loaded. Readers who enjoy compact, deterministic color puzzles can compare this style of solve to the board-clear approach in the Color Flood 5x5 walkthrough.