Spin

Spin strips the color-sorting puzzle down to a single input. There is no dragging and no pouring between tubes: you tap a color, and that color is flung out of every tube where it currently sits on top. A whole run of the same color goes at once, and the number on each button tells you how many tubes it will hit right now.

Because every tap affects the whole board at once, this plays less like a sorting game and more like a sequencing puzzle. Removing red exposes whatever was under red everywhere at the same moment, which might hand you three new blue tops for free or bury the yellow you were setting up. A tap that clears four tubes now can be worse than one that clears two, if the second sets up a cascade where each removal exposes the next color you want.

Par is the real opponent. Every level carries a par, and par is not an estimate: it is the shortest route the board allows, worked out in advance. Clearing on par is three stars, one over is two, anything else inside the limit is one. The three stars above the board are live. They count down the moment a tap makes par impossible, so you learn which move cost you the star while you still remember making it.

The move limit is par plus three on the first fifteen levels and par plus two after that, so finishing is forgiving and three-starring is not. Run out of moves and the level ends with the balls still left on the board; you can retry from the start, or once per attempt watch a short ad for exactly as many extra moves as the board still needs.

Stuck on a board? The bulb at the top of the screen lights up the color to fire next on the shortest remaining route. The first hint on each level is free, later ones cost a short ad, and the bulb stays off when no finish fits in the moves you have left. Each color also carries its own symbol, a triangle, square, circle, diamond or plus, so the colors stay apart for color-blind players.

From level 41 some balls are frosted. A frosted ball does not fly on the first fling of its color: that fling cracks the ice and the ball stays where it is, and the next fling of that color sends it out. Ice also stops a run of the same color, so the frosted ball waits under it. The trick is timing: crack the ice with a fling you were going to make anyway, while that color is flying out of another tube, and the frost costs you nothing. Ignore it and the shortest route slips away.

The puzzles build from two-tube warm-ups with two colors to five tubes and five colors that need genuine planning, and they do not run out. After the hand-made boards, each new level is dealt from one of the hard frosted boards with its colors and tubes shuffled and one more ball frozen, never the same board twice in a row, and its shortest route is worked out again. The game remembers the furthest level you reached and opens there. Tap a color button or press its number key, 1 to 5; H shows a hint and R restarts. Runs in the browser on desktop and mobile with nothing to install.