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About water sort
Water sort is a colour sorting puzzle. Bottles hold layers of coloured water; you pour the top colour of one bottle into another, onto the same colour or into an empty bottle, until every bottle holds just one colour.
How to play water sort
Tap a bottle to pick it up, then tap the bottle you want to pour into. Only the top colour pours, and only onto the same colour or into an empty bottle. As much pours as there’s room for.
The puzzle is solved when every bottle is full of one colour, or empty. There’s no timer pressure: think it through, and use Undo when a pour doesn’t work out.
Tips for sorting faster
Keep a bottle free
An empty bottle is your most useful move. Before you fill the last empty one, check that it gets you somewhere, like finishing a colour or freeing a bottle.
Finish colours early
A finished bottle is one less thing to think about, and it often leaves another bottle with a clean top. Look for the colour that’s closest to done.
Dig for the buried colour
When one colour is stuck at the bottom, work out what’s on top of it first. Clearing the layers above it in the right order is usually the whole puzzle.
Count before you pour
If the target bottle doesn’t have room for the whole run of a colour, part of it stays behind. Sometimes that’s what you want; sometimes it splits a colour you just gathered.
A new water sort puzzle every day
Owlpuzzles has a new water sort puzzle every day at midnight in your time zone, and it gets harder through the week. Monday and Tuesday have 5 colours. Wednesday and Thursday have 8, as mystery bottles: the bottom half of each bottle stays hidden until it reaches the top. Friday to Sunday have 10 colours in taller bottles that hold five layers, still with mystery.
Every puzzle is checked by a solver before it goes out, so there’s always a way to sort it. When one a day isn’t enough, there are 300+ water sort levels from easy to hard, and unlimited play for as many as you like.
Water sort, ball sort and colour sort
The same puzzle comes in a few versions. Ball sort uses coloured balls in tubes instead of water, and colour sort or liquid sort puzzles use the same rules under other names. The idea is the same in all of them: move only the top piece, onto its own colour, until everything is sorted.
Questions about water sort
Is water sort free?
Yes. It plays in your browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to install and no sign-up. A free account only keeps your streak and stats on every device.
Can every water sort puzzle be solved?
Yes. A solver plays every puzzle before it’s published, so each one has a way to sort it.
What are mystery bottles?
On harder days the bottom half of each bottle is hidden. A hidden colour shows as soon as it reaches the top.
Can I play water sort unlimited?
Yes. Unlimited water sort makes a new puzzle whenever you like, at easy, medium or hard.
Is this the same as ball sort?
Very close. Ball sort moves balls between tubes instead of pouring water, but the rules are the same.
More puzzles to try
Like sorting things out? Block puzzle is about clearing lines, arrows is about the order you clear a board in, and tango is a calm grid of suns and moons.