Guide · Puzzle
Test Tubes. Water Sort Beginner's Guide - How to Get Started
New to Test Tubes. Water Sort? This guide walks through how the game starts, how the first two levels play, and what each button did when I tried it.
What is Test Tubes. Water Sort?
Test Tubes. Water Sort is a calm color sorting puzzle that runs free in the browser. Clear test tubes hold stacked layers of colored liquid, and each tube fits 4 layers. You pour from tube to tube until every tube holds a single color. A finished tube gets a cork and a green checkmark, and when all colors are sorted a Victory ribbon appears with three gold stars and the words Level complete. I saw no timer and no move counter during play.
First steps
- When the game loads, press OK, PLAY NOW on the loader, then press the big green Play button on the title screen.
- The Select level screen shows levels 1 to 20 in a grid. Only Level 1 is open at first; the rest show padlocks.
- Level 1 has four tubes and two colors, purple and green, with no empty tube. I solved it in two pours by moving each single layer onto its matching color.
- Level 2 adds a third color and two empty tubes. Use the empty tubes to park top layers so the colors underneath are uncovered.
- Avoid the curved arrow unless you want to start over, since it reset my whole level.
- After a win, the right arrow on the Victory screen takes you to the next level.
Who it's for
It suits players who like slow, thoughtful puzzles with no clock, and anyone who wants a quiet game they can pick up for a few minutes at a time.
Reading a tube from top to bottom
Only the top layer of a tube can move, so always look at the top color first. In Level 2 the first tube had pink on top and pink at the bottom, with blue and green in between. That means two separate pinks have to come out of it at different times.
Pours I saw moved one layer at a time. A tube only counts as finished when all 4 layers match, which is when the cork appears.
Stars and level select
Each level tile on the Select level screen has three small stars under it, and a star counter sits at the top of that screen. I earned three stars on Level 1. I did not see what earns fewer stars, so I cannot say what the rule is.
There is also a right arrow on the side of the level select screen, which likely leads to the next set of levels, though I did not test it.
