Screw Sort
Screw Sort hands you a jumble of pastel translucent panels stacked in layers and pinned together by colored screws. Your tools: one active toolbox that accepts exactly three screws of a single color, and a row of five temp slots for anything else you unscrew. When a panel loses its last screw it tumbles off the board, exposing whatever was hidden underneath it.
The tension is all about order. Matching screws fly straight into the toolbox; a mismatched screw burns a temp slot, and tapping another mismatch with all five slots occupied ends the level on the spot. Temp slots aren't dead weight, though — whenever a toolbox fills and the next color arrives, any buffered screws of that new color drain in automatically. Reading two or three toolboxes ahead is the whole game.
All 200 levels are individually hand-built rather than randomly scrambled, so each is a designed composition: early boards teach the visibility rule with a few panels, while later ones stack deep clusters where most screws start buried. A typical level runs one to a few minutes. A separate Daily Sort puzzle refreshes each day without touching your campaign, and your furthest level is saved so you resume exactly where you stopped.
How to play Screw Sort
You're dismantling a pinned-together pile one screw at a time — but the toolbox dictates which color you can bank right now.
- Check the active toolbox at the top of the screen: its frame tint shows which screw color it currently accepts.
- Tap a visible screw of that color — it spins out and flies into the toolbox. Screws under a covering panel can't be tapped until the panel above them is gone.
- When a toolbox collects its three screws, it clears with a burst and slides away, and the next color's toolbox slides in.
- Need to dig? Tap an off-color screw and it parks in one of the five temp slots below the toolbox.
- When an incoming toolbox matches screws already waiting in temp slots, they drain into it automatically, freeing those slots.
- Remove every screw so every panel drops — an empty board wins the level. Tap a mismatch while all five slots are full, and it's game over.
Tips and strategy
- Before touching anything, find every visible screw matching the toolbox color — banking free matches costs nothing and never spends a temp slot.
- Spend temp slots on screws that release panels: uncovering a buried cluster is worth a slot, parking a random screw usually isn't.
- Panels fall when their last screw comes out, so prioritize panels with one screw remaining — each drop can expose several fresh screws at once.
- Keep two temp slots free as a late-game safety margin; the loss almost always comes from one overconfident mismatch tap.
- If the board looks locked, hunt for the panel with the fewest remaining screws — removing it is nearly always the cheapest way to open things up.
Features
- 200 hand-tuned levels — every board is individually designed, not randomly generated
- Six screw colors and four panel shape families (rounded rectangles, flowers, pills, stars) layered into deep piles
- Three-per-toolbox color banking with automatic temp-slot resolution between toolboxes
- Physics-driven panels that drop off the board once their last screw is removed
- Daily Sort — a fresh daily puzzle that never overwrites your campaign position
- Automatic resume at your furthest level, stored in the browser
- Keeps working with no connection once the page has loaded
- Tap-driven play that behaves the same with a fingertip or a mouse click
Frequently asked questions
Is Screw Sort free?
Completely — all 200 levels and the daily puzzle run in the browser at no cost.
How do I avoid getting stuck?
The only lose condition is tapping a mismatched screw while all five temp slots are occupied. Bank every matching screw first, and spend slots only to uncover panels you actually need open.
How many levels are there?
200, each one hand-designed. They ramp from simple few-panel intros to dense multi-layer piles.
Why can't I tap a certain screw?
Its head is covered by a panel sitting on top of it. Remove that covering panel's screws first and it will drop away, freeing the screws beneath.
Is my progress kept between visits?
Yes — your furthest level is stored locally in the browser, and the menu's resume row takes you straight back to it.
How long does one level take?
Early boards go in under a minute; layered late-game piles usually take a couple of minutes of planning.
