PUZZLES
Color Sort Puzzle Guide: Plan Your Pours
In a colour-sort puzzle each move is small but the order matters. Think about which tube you will need next, not just which pour is possible right now.
How the puzzle works
Each tube holds a stack of colours. You may move the top colour onto another tube if that tube is not full and its top colour matches or it is empty. The puzzle is solved when each tube contains only one colour. Because only the top colour moves, the colours you cannot see are what make the puzzle hard.
Look at the tops
Scan the top colour of every tube first and group those that match. If two tubes share a top colour, you can usually combine them, but check which tube has a deeper stack of that colour, because moving the smaller stack onto the larger one is usually safer.
Protect your empty tube
An empty tube is your most flexible resource. Do not fill it with a colour that will bury another colour you need soon. Use it to uncover a hidden colour, then free it again as soon as you can.
Free the buried colours
Prioritise moves that expose a colour at the bottom of a tube that you need elsewhere. Completing a tube is satisfying, but unlocking a buried colour often matters more, because it lets other pours happen.
Avoid mixed bottoms
If a tube has a different colour at its bottom from the one above it, it will have to be emptied before it can finish. Plan for that early rather than leaving it until you have run out of space.
Think two moves ahead
Before each pour, ask what the next move will be. If the answer is nothing useful, choose another pour. Most dead ends come from filling the last free space with a colour you cannot move on.
Use undo freely
Experiment, observe what a pour does to the board, and undo if it was unhelpful. The undo button is the best learning tool the puzzle has, because it lets you test an idea at no cost.
A worked example
Suppose you have four tubes of four colours and one empty tube. Tube one holds red over blue, tube two holds blue over red, tube three holds red over blue. Pour the top red of tube one into the empty tube, then the top red of tube three on top of it. Now tubes one and three show blue on top, so pour tube three’s blue onto tube one. Each pour either completes a stack or exposes a colour you need.
The lesson is that the first pour into an empty tube should be a colour you can add to immediately. Pouring a colour that has no other copies visible risks locking it away.
Common mistakes
The biggest mistake is using the last empty tube for a convenient move that offers nothing in return. Other mistakes include mixing colours in a tube that was close to completion and creating a tube whose bottom colour is different from the rest.
If you are stuck, count how many of each colour are visible on top. If only one colour appears twice, that is probably your next pour.
Higher difficulties
The harder levels have more colours and fewer spare tubes. The same ideas apply, but you must plan further ahead. Take a moment before the first pour to look at where each colour lives and which tubes you will need to empty first.