How to solve water sort puzzles
A water sort puzzle gives you a row of bottles filled with stripes of colored liquid. Your job is to pour the liquid around until every bottle holds a single color. The idea takes seconds to learn, but later levels get tight, and a few habits make the difference between a clean solve and a stuck board.
This guide uses Garden Pour, a free water sort puzzle on Hyperoza, as the example. Everything here comes from playing it in the browser; the same ideas work in most games of this kind.
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The one rule of water sort
Garden Pour shows its rule on a card in the second level: same color on top, or an empty container. You can pour from one bottle into another only if the top layer of the target bottle has the same color as the liquid you are pouring, or if the target bottle is empty.
To pour, tap or click a bottle to pick it up, then tap the bottle you want to pour into. The top color moves across. If the target has room for all of it, the whole layer moves; if not, only as much as fits.
A level is done when every bottle that holds liquid is filled with one color. The first level in Garden Pour is a single pour, red into red, so you see the whole loop at once: pick up, pour, sorted.
Read the level before your first pour
Every pour costs a move. In Garden Pour the counter at the top shows how many you have left; the second level gives you 41. Moves you waste early are moves you miss at the end, so spend a few seconds looking before you touch anything.
Count the colors and count the empty bottles. In the second level there are four bottles with red and blue layers, and two of them start empty. More empty bottles mean more room to park liquid while you dig out the color you need.
Then look at the top of each bottle. The top layers are the only ones you can move right now, so they decide your first few pours. Look for two bottles that already show the same color on top: pouring one onto the other is a free step forward that uses no empty space.
Treat empty bottles as your most valuable space
An empty bottle accepts any color, which makes it the most flexible spot on the board. Once you pour into it, it only accepts that one color until it is empty again. That is why a careless pour into an empty bottle can lock up a level.
A good rule: only pour into an empty bottle when you can see how that color will be finished soon. If you park a color there and then need the bottle for something else, you have to pour it all back out, which costs moves.
Whenever there is a matching top color somewhere, pour onto it instead. Matching pours keep the empty bottles free for the moments when you really need them.
Work one color at a time
Pick the color that is closest to done, usually the one that already sits on top of several bottles or near the top of them. Gather it into one bottle before you start on the next color.
Finishing a bottle is worth more than it looks. A bottle filled with one color is out of the game, so the board gets simpler, and the layers that were under the color you moved are now on top and ready to pour.
If two colors are tangled together in several bottles, sort the one that frees more space first. Moving a color that sits on top of three bottles opens three new tops at once.
Use undo, extra tube and hints on purpose
Garden Pour puts three helpers under the bottles: undo, extra tube and hint, with three uses of each. They do not refill during a level, so save them for real dead ends rather than using them as soon as a level looks hard.
Undo takes back your last pour. It is most useful right after a pour that went into the wrong bottle, before you build more moves on top of the mistake.
The extra tube adds an empty bottle, which is the same as giving yourself more parking space. If you are one bottle short of a clean solution, this is the helper to use. A hint points to a pour you can make; it is handy when you have stared at the board and no move looks safe.
Common mistakes
Filling every empty bottle early is the most common way to get stuck. Once all of them hold a color and no top colors match, there is no legal pour left except undoing.
Pouring back and forth between two bottles burns moves without sorting anything. If you notice you are repeating pours, stop and look for a different color to work on.
Ignoring what sits under the top layer is the third trap. Before you pour, check what color will be revealed underneath, and ask whether you will have a place to put it.
Stars, replays and the level trail
When you clear a level, Garden Pour shows a star rating, the moves and seconds you took, and a coin reward. The first level gives three stars for a one-move solve.
The levels button opens a trail of 22 puzzles that unlock one by one, and each cleared level shows the stars you earned. If a level ended with fewer than three stars, replay it: the second time you already know which color to sort first, so you need fewer moves.
FAQ
What is the rule in water sort puzzles?
You can pour liquid only onto the same color or into an empty bottle. A level is solved when every bottle holds one color.
Is there a time limit in Garden Pour?
We saw no countdown in the opening levels. A move counter at the top limits you instead, and the end-of-level card shows the seconds you took.
Can I play a water sort puzzle online for free?
Yes. Garden Pour is free and runs in your browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download or install.