Liquid Sort

Pour glowing liquids between test tubes until each holds one colour. Five growing puzzles, three minutes, a par for every rack.

Liquid Sort

Glowing liquids are layered in a rack of glass test tubes. Pour them from tube to tube until every tube holds four layers of one colour. A run is 5 puzzles against a 3-minute clock, and each puzzle is a little bigger than the one before.

How to play

1. Press Start the clock.
2. Tap a tube to pick it up, then tap the tube it should pour into.
3. The top colour pours over when the other tube is empty or shows the same colour on top: as many layers as fit.
4. A tube with four layers of one colour gets a cork and is finished.
5. Solve the rack and the next puzzle appears. Keep going until all five are solved or the time runs out.

Undo takes back the last pour (limited, and it costs points). Restart puzzle puts the rack back to its start for free, but the clock keeps running.

Every puzzle is solvable, with a fair par

Each rack is dealt at random from the run's seed, then checked by a built-in solver that searches for the shortest possible solution. A deal is only used if it can be solved and its shortest solution lands in a fixed window for that puzzle size, so every player gets puzzles of the same size, in the same order, inside the same difficulty band. That shortest number of pours is the puzzle's par. The result screen shows the run code, such as #3FA91C07.

Difficulty

Normal, Hard

Colours per puzzle (puzzles 1 to 5), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Spare (empty) tubes, 2, 1

Hidden layers, none, the bottom layer of each tube shows ? until uncovered

Points per colour, 10, 20

Par bonus per colour, +5, +10

Undos per run, 10, each −5 points, 5, each −10 points

Time bonus when all 5 are solved, 2 points per second left, 4 points per second left

Par window (shortest solution), 3 colours 7–10, 4: 10–13, 5: 13–17, 6: 16–20, 7: 19–24, 4 colours 9–13, 5: 12–17, 6: 15–20, 7: 18–24, 8: 21–27

Score

• A solved puzzle scores its points per colour, plus the par bonus per colour if you used par pours or fewer (an undo takes its pour back off the count; a restart starts the count again).
• Each undo subtracts its cost. The score never goes below 0.
• Solve all five puzzles and every whole second left on the clock adds the time bonus.
• Normal and Hard have separate leaderboards. Higher is better.

Controls

Action, Mouse / touch, Keyboard

Pick up or pour, tap a tube, 1–9 and 0, or arrow keys and Enter

Put the tube down, tap it again, press its key again

Undo, Undo, U or Backspace

Restart puzzle, Restart puzzle, R

Pause, ❙❙ button, Esc or P

The clock stops and the rack is covered while the game is paused or loses focus. Sound and reduced motion can be switched in the top bar; colours also carry a symbol, so they never have to be told apart by hue alone.