Nuts color sort strategy
Use empty space carefully and build full-color stacks without claiming an optimal solution.
Scan before moving
Look at the top color of each filled bolt and count your empty spaces. A matching pair of exposed nuts is often a useful place to start, but moving it can uncover a different color underneath. Imagine both the destination’s new top and the source’s next top before committing.
- Choose one color you can collect without blocking another.
- Keep at least one empty bolt available when possible.
- Avoid filling all available empty space with unrelated colors too early.
- Use Undo when a move closes a useful route.
Watch the four-nut limit
A nearly full matching stack may help you finish a color, but it cannot receive a fifth nut. If you need to uncover a buried nut, make sure there is a legal destination for every top nut above it. Moving a matching nut to a full bolt is never allowed, even when every visible color matches.
Recover from a blocked board
When no useful move is visible, try Undo to return to the previous arrangement. Restart restores the original board for this level. Add spare bolt creates more space, up to two extra bolts beyond the six initial bolts in Practice or seven in Challenge. Adding space counts as a move and can also be undone.
What this advice can promise
Initial boards are generated by reversing legal moves from sorted stacks, so a starting solution exists. Your current arrangement may need a different route or a restart. These suggestions are practical heuristics; they do not establish the fewest possible moves or guarantee that the bounded hint search will solve every arrangement.