Water Sort Puzzle: how to play

Water Sort Puzzle is a free color water sort game you play online. Pour colored water from tube to tube until every glass tube holds just one color. Drip, a happy water drop, cheers you on through five sunny places, from Bubble Spring to Cloud Castle, with new puzzles every day that are the same for everyone.

How to play

Tap or click a tube to pick it up, then tap the tube you want to pour into. In this water sort puzzle you can pour only onto the same color or into an empty tube, and each tube holds four layers. Every layer of that color on top pours across, as many as fit.
Every color also has its own shape (circle, triangle, square, star, heart, diamond, plus, moon and cross), so you can sort by shape when two colors look alike to you.
With a keyboard, press 1 to 9 (and 0 for the tenth tube) to pick up and pour, or move along the tubes with the arrow keys and press Space or Enter. U undoes a pour, T adds the extra tube and Esc puts a tube back down.
Each puzzle has a clock. If it runs out, or you get stuck with no pour left and no help left, you lose one of your three hearts and that puzzle starts again from the beginning.
Help arrives as you go: from Lily Pond you get 5 undos in every level, and from Rainbow Falls one extra empty tube in every level.
Points: 50 for each tube you sort, 100 per color when you finish a puzzle plus 2 for every second left on its clock, and a level bonus of 200 times the level number. Three stars per level: clear it, keep all your hearts, and beat the target time.

The five levels

Bubble Spring: two warm-up puzzles with 3 colors and 2 empty tubes
Lily Pond: 4 colors, and the UNDO button arrives
Rainbow Falls: 5 colors, and the + TUBE button gives you one extra empty tube
Coral Lagoon: 6 colors with mystery layers: only the top color of each tube shows until you pour it off
Cloud Castle: 7 colors, mystery layers and both helpers

Clear Cloud Castle and the five places come round again with new puzzles: lap 2 adds one more color to every level and a shorter clock, lap 3 one more again (up to 9 colors), and then it stays at that. You have three hearts for the whole run, and the game is the same for everyone each day, so you can compare scores. Press M to turn the sound off or on.

Tips

Keep an empty tube free for as long as you can: it is your best tool.
Look for one color sitting on top of two tubes and pour one onto the other first.
Finish one color at a time. A sorted tube gets a cork and is out of the way.
In Coral Lagoon and Cloud Castle, pour off the top of a tube with mystery layers early to see what is under it.

Questions

Is Water Sort Puzzle free?

Yes. Water Sort Puzzle is free to play online in your browser: no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy.

Can I play the water sort puzzle on my phone?

Yes. Tap a tube, then tap where to pour. It works on phones, tablets and computers; on an upright phone the tubes stand in rows under Drip.

Can every puzzle be solved?

Yes. A solver checks every puzzle before you see it, so each one can be sorted with the two empty tubes alone, without undo or the extra tube.

Can I play color water sort if some colors look alike to me?

Yes. Every color has its own shape inside the water, so you can sort by shape alone and never need to tell two colors apart.