Ball Sort
Ball Sort is the classic color-sorting puzzle in its purest form: a row of glass tubes filled with jumbled colored balls, and one strict rule governing every move. Tap a tube to lift its top ball, tap another to pour, and the entire run of matching balls on top moves together — but only into an empty tube or onto a ball of the same color.
What makes it bite is the buffer. Every level grants exactly one spare tube, so each pour has to earn its space. The game watches the board and tells you the moment no legal move remains, and the hint system doesn't just encourage you — it highlights a genuine next pour drawn from the level's own solution. You hold a pool of three hints that tops itself back up every four hours.
The 200-level ladder opens with two colors and ends on nine-color boards, every one generated with a machine-verified solving line. Beyond the campaign sits Today's Challenge: a fresh date-seeded board that is identical for everyone and feeds a running streak counter. A typical level resolves in a minute or two, which makes this an easy game to dip into and a hard one to put down.
How to play Ball Sort
Sort every ball until each tube holds one color or stands empty. Two taps make a move: source first, then destination.
- Tap a tube to select it — its top ball lifts to show it's ready to pour.
- Tap a second tube to pour. The move is legal when the target is empty, or its top ball matches the color you're moving and space remains.
- Matching balls travel as a group: the whole same-color run on top transfers in one move, as far as the room allows.
- Tap the selected tube again to cancel and pick a different source.
- Keep pouring until every tube is either empty or filled with four of a kind — that clears the level.
- If no legal pour is left anywhere, the stuck screen appears; retry the level and open with a different order.
Tips and strategy
- Treat the spare tube as a loan, not a home — anything parked there must eventually have somewhere better to go.
- Dig out the deepest buried color early; a color whose pieces sit at the bottom of several different tubes is the real bottleneck.
- Finish tubes as soon as you can: a completed four-of-a-kind never needs touching again, which effectively shrinks the puzzle.
- Before spending the empty tube, look for a same-color merge between two part-filled tubes that achieves the same tidying for free.
- Save hints for the mid-game mess rather than move one — each hint reveals a real pour from the solved line, and that information is most valuable when the board is at its worst.
- In Today's Challenge you get one board per day, so slow down: a lost streak costs more than a slow solve.
Features
- 200 sort puzzles scaling from two colors up to nine, each generated with a verified solution
- Strict run-pour rule — whole groups of matching balls move in a single tap-tap gesture
- Today's Challenge: a daily date-seeded board shared by every player, with a streak counter
- Three free hints that recharge every four hours and point out a genuine legal move
- Automatic dead-board detection with one-tap retry
- Furthest level and daily streak stored in your browser
- One-finger touch play, or a single mouse button on desktop
- Stays playable with no connection after the first load
Frequently asked questions
Is Ball Sort free to play?
Yes — all 200 levels and the daily challenge cost nothing and run straight in the browser.
How many levels are there?
200. The first twenty climb from two to six colors as a warm-up; from there the boards deepen through seven and eight colors to a final stretch of nine.
What should I do when I'm stuck?
The game detects a dead board automatically and offers a retry. Before that point, spending one of your three hints lights up an actual legal pour taken from the level's solution.
Does my progress carry over?
Your furthest level and your daily streak are saved locally on the device and browser you play in, so returning later resumes where you stopped.
What is Today's Challenge?
A separate date-seeded puzzle that changes every 24 hours and is identical for every player. Complete it on consecutive days to build your streak.
Why won't my ball pour?
A pour needs a legal target: an empty tube, or a tube whose top ball matches the one you're moving and still has room. If neither holds, the move is refused and you can pick another tube.
