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Fluid Mix
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About the game
Fluid Mix is a sorting puzzle with test tubes. Fourteen vials stand on the board, and eleven of them start full of coloured layers in a random order, four layers to a vial, plus three empty vials to work in. To win, every vial that has anything in it must be full of one single colour, with the layers of that colour all poured together.
The rules of pouring are strict and that is where the thinking comes in. You can only pour the top layer of a vial onto a vial whose top layer has the same colour, or into an empty vial, and the whole run of identical colours on top moves together. It only fits if the receiving vial has room for all of them. A pour that looks harmless can bury the colour you need next, so the game is about planning a few moves ahead and keeping the empty vials free for as long as possible.
Every layer has a number on it as well as a colour, which also helps if you have trouble telling similar colours apart. There is no timer and no move limit, and Undo goes back as far as you want, so a bad pour is only a small loss. When you finish, the layers light up and the status line says you have won.
Playing it here
Click Play. A new puzzle is dealt, randomly, every time the game starts without a saved board. Click a vial to pick it up, and click another vial to pour: if the move is not allowed, nothing happens. The Undo and Redo buttons are under the vials. In the Options menu in the corner, New Game deals a new puzzle, and you can change the colour scheme or bring back an earlier game. Your board is saved in this browser after every move.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Click or tap a vial | pick up its top colour |
| Click or tap a second vial | pour onto it, if the colour matches and there is room |
| Undo / Redo | take back or repeat a pour |
| Options > New Game | deal a new puzzle |
A few things worth knowing
Keep an empty vial in reserve. Filling the empty vials early takes away your room to manoeuvre. Use one to free a colour that is stuck under another.
Work from the bottom up. The colour at the bottom of a vial decides what the vial can become, so choose which vial will hold each colour before you start pouring.
Do not be afraid of Undo. It is part of the puzzle. Try the move, see what it buries, and take it back if it does not work.
FAQ
Can a puzzle be impossible? The layers are shuffled at random and the game does not check that a puzzle can be solved. With three empty vials to work with they usually can; if one seems stuck, Undo goes back, and New Game deals another.
Is there a move counter or timer? No, you can take as long as you like.
What are the numbers for? Each colour has its own number, so you can tell two similar colours apart by their label.
Is it the same game every time? No, each New Game shuffles the layers again.
Credits and licence
Fluid Mix was made by Alex Barry as a small Lua program for his own game engine, and it is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. The engine, the Lua interpreter (MIT licence) and the game run in your browser as WebAssembly. We removed the online multiplayer, the zip upload and the links to other sites from the page; the game itself was not changed. Because the licence is the AGPL, the complete source of the version played here, the patch and the build script are linked from this page, together with the licence texts.