Ball Sort
A little glass. A little color. A satisfying place for everything.
Your committed puzzle saves in this browser.
Tap one tube, then an empty tube or matching top. A pour moves the exposed same-color group, limited by free space. Completed tubes stay locked. Arrow keys move tube focus; Enter/Space chooses, Escape clears selection. U/Ctrl+Z undoes, Y redoes, H asks for help, P pauses, R confirms Restart and L chooses a puzzle. No tools used in this attempt. Active time: 00:00. Original puzzles sorted: 0 / 30.
Your achievements 0 / 8
How to play Ball Sort
Give every color a tube of its own. Each tube holds four balls. Tap a nonempty, unfinished source, then an empty tube or a destination with the same top color and some free space. Each ball has a color and a distinct shape mark, so matching does not depend on color alone.
A group moves together
A pour moves the exposed continuous group of matching balls, limited by the destination’s free spaces. If two matching balls are exposed but the destination has room for only one, exactly one moves. One grouped pour counts as one move. Wrong-color or full destinations receive nothing. A full tube of one color is complete and locked; it cannot be poured out again.
The receiving tube stays selected after a pour if it is unfinished. Tap it again or press Escape to clear the selection. To finish, every tube must be empty or full with four matching balls. A partly filled single-color tube is not finished.
Numbered puzzles, more colors
Level 1 starts with three colors and two empty tubes. One color is added every three levels, reaching 12 colors at level 28. Higher numbers keep 12 colors. Use the level menu to open any numbered puzzle; a committed win saves the next-level recommendation immediately.
The collection contains 30 original puzzle bases, three for each color count from 3 through 12. Numbered levels use deterministic color and tube variations of those bases. Each starting arrangement has a checked solution, while your choices may require Undo or Restart. The levels are not an endless supply of new underlying puzzles, and a higher number is not a guaranteed difficulty increase.
Help that stays honest
Hint never moves a ball. When your exact arrangement matches a checked route, the highlighted pour is labeled Checked route and continues that verified finish. Otherwise, a Legal option is only an allowed pour; no complete solution has been verified from your current layout. A request that reports no legal pour still counts as help. No shortest-solution promise is made.
Undo and Redo keep up to 200 board actions, including an added tube. They restore the exact committed tubes and move count. Hint, Undo, Restart and extra-tube use stay recorded even when you go back. Restart returns the same numbered starting arrangement as practice.
You may keep one free extra tube on the board at a time. Undo or Restart may remove it; you can then add it again. Its use remains recorded as help, so re-adding or restarting cannot turn the puzzle into a no-tools finish. A different numbered puzzle begins a new attempt. Every original start is solvable without using that extra tube. There are no ads, refill charges or purchases for these tools.
Easy controls
Tap tubes in order: source, then destination. Arrow keys move focus through the visible tube grid; Enter or Space chooses a tube. Escape clears selection, then closes dialogs or the immersive view. U or Ctrl/Cmd+Z undoes, Y or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z redoes, H asks for help, P pauses, R confirms a practice Restart, and L opens the level menu. Native puzzle-number typing keeps its normal editing keys.
Selecting an unfinished tube on a small screen opens the immersive game view. Full screen and Back to page also work manually and restore your previous page position. Pause hides the tubes and stops active time. Sound begins off; reduced-motion preferences are respected. Pours commit immediately, with short decorative motion that never owns the board state.
Eight genuine stars
Make a first pour, move a group of at least two, complete one tube, finish a puzzle, finish a new original puzzle without tools, finish with six colors, finish with all 12, and finish three different original bases. The original-puzzle collection counts each of the 30 bases once; color/tube variations, Undo, restart and reload do not add duplicate finishes. Prior help for a base cannot become a new no-tools first finish through a variation.
Your saved cabinet
Your committed tubes, selected source, active time, first results, collection and stars save in this browser when storage is available. A visible warning explains a save failure; keep that tab open. No account or online leaderboard is needed. If no legal pour remains, the puzzle offers tools rather than declaring a permanent loss.
This is an original implementation and glass-tube presentation, informed by the grouped-pour rules of FoolFish Ball Sort. No publisher code, artwork, tube layouts or branding was copied.