Puzzle / Space management

Puzzle: Water Sort

A liquid-sorting puzzle — the build calls itself "Hue & Brew" on screen — where coloured drinks have to be gathered into single bottles, with three charges each of shuffle, undo and a bottle tool.

Free to playAt your own paceNo download
A little time for

Puzzle: Water Sort

Loads when you choose to play.

Use two fingers over the game to scroll this page.

Get to know the game

What makes Puzzle: Water Sort different?

Water Sort moves top liquid layers. Puzzle Hex uses stacked nuts, while Spin Screw Jam adds physical access to its color-sorting problem.

The header chip does not say Water Sort. It reads "Hue & Brew", and that is the name the build uses for itself; the catalogue entry above it is ours. Beside the chip is a gold coin pill reading 1000 with a green plus, a purple settings gear at the right, and a blue level tab reading "Lv 1" underneath.

The board is two glass bottles standing on a dark starfield, each holding a column of liquid. The left one is about two-thirds full of a deep red drink under a grey rim; the right one is nearly empty with a short, brighter red layer at its bottom under a white rim, and a white gloved hand points at it from the right. The rule of the genre follows from that picture: you pour from one bottle to another, and a bottle only accepts a pour if the colour it receives matches what is already on top.

The caption across the middle reads "All drinks done - Level cleared!", so the board we photographed is a finished one — which is why only two bottles remain in play. Along the bottom is a rounded tool bar of three buttons, each badged with 3 charges: a purple button with crossed arrows, a dark button with a counter-clockwise circular arrow, and a dark button showing a bottle marked with a plus. Our three screenshots are the same state, so everything here is read off that one board.

Learn the controls

How to play

  1. Read the surface of every bottle before pouring. Only the top colour of a bottle is reachable.
  2. Tap the bottle you want to pour from, then the bottle you want to pour into.
  3. Prefer pouring onto a bottle that already holds the same colour and still has room, rather than opening an empty bottle you may need later.
  4. Keep at least one bottle empty if you can — a spare bottle is the only space the puzzle gives you to reorder.
  5. Use undo the moment a pour turns out to block you, while the three charges still cover more than one mistake.
  6. Save the shuffle for a board where no legal pour exists at all; it rearranges everything, including the parts you had already solved.

A better next move

Read the board, then act.

Before pouring, name the next two pours the move makes possible. Grouping a color is useful only if the rest of the board remains movable.

One colour per bottle, and only the top layer matters

The two bottles on screen both end in red. In a pour puzzle the surface is what a new liquid lands on, so a bottle that looks nearly finished can still be the blocker — the colour at the top decides what you are allowed to move anywhere else on the board.

Three tools, three charges each

The shuffle, the undo and the bottle-with-a-plus all carry a badge of 3. Undo is the one that pays for itself: a bad pour in this genre is rarely fatal, it is just unrecoverable without it.

A coin balance you start with

Unlike most games here, which open at 0, this one shows 1000 coins on the very first frame with a green plus beside it. The balance is a stock you draw on, and the plus is where more comes from.

Useful habits

  • The caption "All drinks done - Level cleared!" is the win message, and it tells you the goal is expressed in drinks, not in score.
  • A bottle with a short layer at the bottom, like the right-hand one the hand is pointing at, is the easiest place to build a finished colour.
  • The level tab reads "Lv 1" — the progression is a straight ladder rather than a map.
  • Three charges is the whole tool budget for a run, so counting them is as useful as counting the bottles.

Common mistakes

  • Filling the last empty bottle. Once every bottle is occupied and none of them match, the shuffle is the only way out.
  • Pouring a colour onto itself when the receiving bottle has a different colour under the surface — it looks progress and is not.
  • Spending all three undos early, then playing the rest of the board defensively.

On a phone or computer

Portrait, with the bottles standing in the middle of a dark field and the three tools in a rounded bar along the bottom. The bottles are wide enough to tap accurately on a phone even when four or five share a row, which is the main reason this genre works one-handed. No keyboard control appears on any captured frame.

From the hosted game

A look at the opening screens.

The gallery documents the available build’s opening screens. Menus, later levels and optional offers can vary.

A few useful answers

Before your next round

Why does the game say Hue & Brew?

That is the name the build gives itself — it is printed in the chip at the top of the screen. "Puzzle: Water Sort" is the title we list it under in the catalogue.

What is the goal?

Gather each colour into a single bottle. The win caption on the board reads "All drinks done - Level cleared!".

What are the three buttons at the bottom?

A shuffle on crossed arrows, an undo on a counter-clockwise arrow, and a bottle marked with a plus — each badged with three charges. They are limited, not on a timer.

Is there a time limit?

Nothing on the captured frame counts down. The pressure is the number of bottles and the three tool charges.

Why do I start with 1000 coins?

The balance shown in the header is 1000, with a green plus to add more. It is the currency the tools and any extra helps draw on.