The reds finally share a bottle. It looks tidier. Then nothing useful can move: the last empty bottle has become a door locked from inside.
Water Sort rewards more than an orderly appearance. Each tidy move can use space needed for circulation. A prettier part does not necessarily make the whole easier.
A Reddit discussion debates whether certain levels require extra bottles. It concerns another version, so cannot establish anything about a particular board here. Keep the question: is the order of moves wrong, or has solvability never been established?
How much moves in one pour?
Our Water Sort holds four layers per bottle. Pour into an empty bottle or one with a matching top color and spare capacity. Source and destination must differ, and an empty source cannot pour.
A move transfers as many contiguous matching top layers as the destination can hold—not necessarily one layer per tap.
Read bottom to top. A contains blue, red, red; B contains green, red with two spaces. Pour A into B: both top reds transfer, leaving A blue and B green, red, red, red.
B looks almost entirely red. The green still trapped underneath is the next question.
Empty space lets you uncover something
To reach blue beneath red, red needs a temporary home. An empty bottle can expose an inaccessible color.
Moving a complete monochrome bottle into another empty bottle usually changes its location, not the available space. It may help your memory, but movement alone is not progress.
Ask which buried color becomes accessible afterward. If the answer is only “it looks neater,” compare another option.
Preserve space, but use it when needed
An empty bottle is valuable because you can use it. Filling it may be necessary to empty a different bottle. Refusing ever to touch it can also prevent progress.
Think in short sequences: move red temporarily, expose blue, pour blue onto another blue, recover the original bottle as new working space. Follow how space returns, not only how many empties exist at one instant.
This is practice advice, not an optimal solver for every board. If a plan depends on unclear later colors, call it an attempt to test.
Undo to the branch, not merely the beginning
The site offers undo and resetting the current board. Undo reverses previous moves; reset restores this opening arrangement. Generating again creates a different board, so do not confuse the comparisons.
When stuck, return to a previous choice with two destinations and change one. Repeatedly restarting along the same convenient route can reproduce the same trap.
“A to C exposed blue but used all the space” gives you more to inspect than “lost again.”
A legal move does not prove a solution exists
The current generator randomly shuffles colors without using a complete solver to verify every opening. This guide cannot promise all boards are solvable or explain repeated failure as insufficient skill.
If you have repeatedly examined key branches without progress, try another board. A legal pour proves only a legal pour remains, not that all bottles can eventually be completed.
Before using the last empty bottle, pause: what will it uncover, and how will I get working space back? That second can be worth more than ten extra pours.