Happy Life GamesNut Sort Guide: How to Sort Nuts and Bolts Like a Pro
Nut Sort is a tidy-up puzzle with a mechanical feel. A row of bolts stands on the table, each threaded with colorful nuts in no particular order. You unscrew nuts from one bolt and screw them onto another until every bolt carries a single color. There's something deeply satisfying about watching a cap screw down on a finished bolt, and the puzzles get clever enough that you'll want a real plan to get there.
If you've played water sorting games, the rules will feel familiar. The space is just as tight, and the way nuts move in groups rewards careful planning.
How to play
Every bolt holds up to four nuts. Play is all taps:
- Tap a bolt to lift its top nut, along with any nuts of the same color directly beneath it.
- Tap another bolt to screw them on there.
- Tap the same bolt again, or anywhere off the bolts, to put the nuts back.
A move is legal when the target bolt has room and is either empty or has a nut of the same color on top. Nuts travel as a group: if the top of a bolt shows two yellow nuts, both move together, as long as the target has space for them. If it only has space for one, one moves and the other stays put.
When a bolt holds four nuts of one color, a cap screws down on top and a check mark appears. A capped bolt is finished and can't be picked up again. Sort every color onto its own bolt and the board celebrates with "SORTED!"
You can't lose a level in the usual sense. If no move is left, or the game can prove the position can't be finished, a banner reminds you that undo and hints are available.
Beginner strategy
The whole game comes down to free space. Each level gives you exactly one bolt's worth of spare room, which is four empty slots, and that is barely enough. On some boards the spare room is a completely empty bolt. On others it's scattered as gaps on top of several half-filled bolts.
A good beginner routine looks like this:
- Scan for free stacking moves first. Putting a nut onto a matching color uses no new space.
- Look for a bolt you can finish. Three of a color with the fourth sitting on top of another bolt is a gift. Take it.
- Use the empty bolt last, and on purpose. Only move a nut into an empty bolt when you know which nuts will join it next.
It also helps to say out loud, or at least in your head, what a move uncovers. A move that reveals a color matching another bolt's top creates your next move for free.
Advanced techniques
Choose your target color early
With six or seven colors on the board, trying to work on everything at once leads to chaos. Pick one color, ideally the one whose four nuts sit closest to the tops of their bolts, and focus on finishing it. Every completed bolt removes four nuts from the puzzle and makes the rest easier to read.
Watch out for the tempting first move
Beyond the opening tutorial levels, our puzzles are picked so that the most obvious move, such as stacking the biggest group onto a matching color or dropping a nut on the empty bolt, usually isn't the best start. On some boards that obvious move leads straight into a dead end. Treat the first move as the most important one of the level and compare at least two options before committing.
Don't break a clean stack
A bolt that holds only one color, even if it's not full yet, is a great place to collect more of that color. Moving nuts off it onto a mixed bolt throws that work away. Keep single-color bolts intact and feed them.
Make your own empty bolt
When the spare room is spread across several bolts, you have no clean place to park a nut. The fix is to consolidate. Look for two bolts with the same color on top where one has a single nut of that color: moving it across empties a slot, and doing this a couple of times can clear an entire bolt. Once you have an empty bolt, the rest of the level opens up.
Plan the move after next
Before tapping, picture the board after your move and ask what you'd do next. If the answer is "nothing useful," choose a different move. This one habit catches most dead ends before they happen.
Common mistakes
- Parking nuts with no plan. A single nut sitting alone on the empty bolt blocks it for every other color.
- Forgetting about partial moves. If the target has less room than the group you're moving, part of the group stays behind and splits the color.
- Burying the color you need. Screwing a nut on top of a bolt whose lower nuts you still need to reach adds extra moves later.
- Undoing too little. If you've been shuffling the same nuts back and forth, you're probably stuck several moves back, not one.
What changes in later levels
The first two levels use just two colors and teach the basic tap-and-move rhythm, with a pointing hand showing you what to do. From level 3 the boards grow to three colors, then four by around level 6. After level 10, colors keep climbing to as many as seven.
The number of moves a level needs grows too. Short solutions of a few moves give way to puzzles that need a dozen or more careful moves. Difficulty follows a sawtooth rather than a straight line: tougher levels build up, every tenth level is a peak, and the next level is a gentler one to let you catch your breath.
The amount of spare room, though, stays the same: one bolt's worth. With seven colors and only four free slots, the margin for wasted moves is very small, so the planning habits above matter more and more.
FAQ
How does the hint work?
Tapping the hint shows the next move of a shortest solution from your current board, with a pointing hand and the numbers 1 and 2 on the two bolts involved. If your current position can't be solved anymore, the hint first rewinds your moves until it can.
Is there a limit on undo?
No. You can undo one move at a time all the way back to the start of the level, which makes undo a good way to test ideas.
Why won't a finished bolt let me pick it up?
Once four nuts of one color are capped, that bolt is done. Locking it stops you from accidentally undoing your own progress.
Is Nut Sort the same as Water Sort?
The core rule is the same: move onto an empty space or a matching color. The board feels different, though, because you're always working with exactly four spare slots. If you enjoy this, Water Sort and Color Rings are good next stops. Color Rings moves only one piece at a time, which changes the strategy in interesting ways.