Water sort puzzle: play Decant free
Pour colored liquid from tube to tube until every tube holds one color. Today’s Daily and ten practice levels run on this page, free, with no sign-up. This is a gameplay preview: the Decant app for iPhone and Android looks and sounds better.
Get Decant on iPhone and Android. The ranked Daily is free, and so are the first 30 of 180 boards. One unlock opens the rest.
Keep going in the Decant app. Today’s ranked Daily and the first 30 of its 180 boards are free there, with no ads. One $4.99 unlock or the StackForge Play Pass opens the rest.
Decant is free to start, with no ads: Get it on iPhone · Get it on Android
Today’s board is the same one the Decant app deals for its Daily. Retry it as often as you like.
This is a gameplay preview, and browser play is unranked practice. The Decant app looks and sounds better, with its full visuals, animation, sound and haptics. The ranked Daily, its leaderboard and your streak live there too. It is free to start, with 30 of the 180 boards.
Keep playing on your phone: scan to get Decant
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Point your phone camera at the code for your phone.
This game sends nothing about your play anywhere. Your best pour counts stay in this browser.
How to play this color sort puzzle
- Tap a tube to lift it. Only a tube with somewhere to pour will lift.
- Tap another tube to pour into it: an empty tube, or one whose top color matches and has room.
- Keep pouring until every tube holds four layers of a single color. Two spare tubes give you room to think.
Tap the lifted tube again to put it down. A pour the rules refuse leaves your tube lifted, so a misjudged tap costs nothing. With a keyboard, Tab moves between tubes, Enter or Space lifts and pours, and Escape puts a tube down.
Undo takes back one pour at a time, three times per board, the same as the app’s free tier. Restart is always free. When every tube is down to one color, the last forced pours finish on their own.
Liquid sort tips: pour with a plan
- Keep a spare tube empty for as long as you can. It is the only place a buried color can go.
- Pour onto a matching top before you reach for an empty tube.
- Watch what a pour uncovers. The best move often frees the color underneath, not the one on top.
- Each color carries a small symbol on its top layer, so the board never depends on telling hues apart.
More technique is in the Decant water sort guide, the beginner’s guide and the guide to dead ends and hard boards.
Perfect and Par: solve it in few pours
Every board was proved solvable before it shipped, and its shortest solution is the Perfect. Par is the goal a few pours above it. The counter beside your pours shows the Perfect, and the bar under the scores fills as you approach it: brass from Perfect through Par, coral only past Par. Matching the Perfect is a perfect clear. A few older Daily boards show a Target instead, the route their Daily was published with.
If you pour into a position that can still move but can never be sorted, the page says so: undo or restart and try a different line.
Today’s Daily and the practice levels
The Daily is seeded by the UTC date, so everyone who plays it gets the same tubes in the same order, and it is the same board the app deals for its Daily. A fresh one arrives at 00:00 UTC. Here you can retry it freely.
The practice levels are the first ten boards of the app’s 180-board ladder, starting gentle. Your best pour count on each is remembered on this device only. How the ranked Daily scores is explained in the Daily and par guide.
What the Decant app adds
The app keeps the ranked side: one ranked Daily attempt a day against a leaderboard, a streak, 180 ladder boards from gentle to severe, satisfying glass pours with sound and haptics, high-contrast liquids and left-handed tools. It is free to start with no ads, with an optional $4.99 one-time unlock or the StackForge Play Pass for the full ladder, unlimited practice and undo.
Water sort puzzle questions
What is a water sort puzzle?
A water sort puzzle, also called a color sort or liquid sort puzzle, gives you tubes holding stacked layers of colored liquid. You pour from tube to tube until every tube holds a single color. Decant uses four layers per tube and two spare empty tubes on every board.
What are the pouring rules?
You can pour the top color of a tube onto an empty tube or onto a tube whose top color matches, as long as there is room. The whole matching run on top moves at once, or as much of it as fits. A sorted tube is finished and stays put, and pouring a single-color tube into an empty one is not allowed because it changes nothing.
Is every level solvable?
Yes. Every Decant board is proved solvable by a solver before it is offered, and the proved shortest route is its Perfect. Par is a few pours above it: Perfect plus 15%, and never fewer than two extra. If you pour yourself into a position with no way out, the page tells you so you can undo or restart.
Is today's board the same one as in the app?
Yes. The Daily here is dealt by the same engine and the same date seed as the Daily in the Decant app for iPhone and Android, so the tubes and colors are identical. A browser solve is never ranked; the ranked attempt and the Daily leaderboard live in the app.
Do I need an account or an install?
Neither. The puzzle runs in this page, you can retry as often as you like, and nothing about your play is sent anywhere. Your best pour counts are kept only in this browser.
Are there ads, lives or timers?
No. The browser puzzle is free with no ads, and the Decant app is free to start with no ads, lives, energy or timers. In the app the free tier includes today's Daily, the first 30 ladder boards and three undos per board; an optional $4.99 one-time unlock or the StackForge Play Pass opens all 180 boards.