Sooner or later every water sort player reaches a board where nothing will pour. Every tube has a different color on top, none of them has room, and there's no empty tube left. Here's how to recognize that position, and the three ways out.
What "stuck" means
You're stuck when no pour is allowed anywhere: for every pair of tubes, either the colors on top don't match or the target is full. In Pourfold, a card appears saying no color can be poured, with your options right there.
Being stuck is not the end of the level. Every Pourfold level has a solution (each board is checked by a solver before you see it), so a dead end only means an earlier move took you off the path.
Option 1: undo a few moves
Undo is almost always the best first step. Go back two or three moves and look for the moment you filled your last empty tube, or covered a color you needed. That's usually where the trouble started.
- Pourfold gives 5 free undos per level.
- After that, you can watch a short video for 5 more, or carry on without.
When you replay from that point, try one of the habits from our water sort tips: keep a tube free, and finish a color before starting another.
Option 2: add an empty tube
Once per level, Pourfold can add one extra empty tube after a short video. With a spare tube, almost every stuck position opens up again, because you can lift a color off and dig underneath.
Use it when undoing doesn't help, for example if you'd have to go back a long way. The extra tube stays until you finish the level, and Undo keeps working with it.
Option 3: restart the level
Sometimes a fresh start is quicker, especially on smaller boards. Restart puts the level back to its first position, with your free undos refilled. Pourfold asks before restarting from the tool row, so a stray tap doesn't throw away a long level.
How to avoid getting stuck
Most dead ends come from the same few mistakes:
- Filling the last empty tube with a color that doesn't finish anything.
- Burying a color that only appears once more on the board.
- Spreading one color across several tubes instead of collecting it in one.
A quick check before each pour prevents most of them: "After this move, will I still have a free tube or a matching top to work with?"
Water sort basics
If you're new to the game, read how to play water sort for the rules and a worked example, and how levels get harder to know what to expect.
