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Color Flood

Flood the whole board in one color before your moves run out — grow your region from the top-left corner, one color pick at a time.

How to play Color Flood

Color Flood is a deceptively deep flood-fill puzzle. The board starts as a chaotic patchwork of colored cells, and you own just one region: the patch of connected cells in the top-left corner. Every move you pick a color, your whole region instantly repaints to it, and any neighbouring cells that already wear that color are absorbed into your territory. Your empire spreads outward like spilled paint — but the clock of moves is ticking. Flood the entire board into a single color before your moves run out and you win; hit the limit with even one stubborn cell remaining and you lose. Each board is randomly generated, every difficulty has its own leaderboard, and the whole game runs offline in your browser.

The goal

Make every cell on the board the same color within the move limit. You start owning only the top-left cell and whatever same-colored cells connect to it. Each color pick costs exactly one move, so the puzzle is to find the shortest repaint sequence that swallows the whole board.

The board and difficulties

Easy is a 10×10 board with 6 colors and 25 moves; Medium is 14×14 with 6 colors and 30 moves; Hard is 18×18 with 8 colors and only 40 moves. Bigger boards and more colors mean longer flood chains, so the margin for error shrinks fast. Every cell also carries a small shape symbol matching its color — dot, triangle, square, star and so on — so the board stays readable if you have any form of color-vision deficiency. The moves-left counter and timer sit above the board; the timer starts on your first move.

How a move works

  • Your region is the group of cells connected to the top-left corner that share its color. Cells in your region show a brighter symbol so you can see your territory at a glance.
  • Pick a color using the big buttons under the board, by pressing number keys 1–8, or by tapping any board cell to choose that cell’s color.
  • Your whole region repaints to the chosen color, then instantly absorbs every orthogonally adjacent cell (up, down, left, right — not diagonals) that already has that color, along with the cells connected to them.
  • Picking the color your region already has is not allowed — the game rejects it and no move is spent, so a stray double-tap can never waste a move.
  • Each valid pick costs one move, whether it absorbs fifty cells or none. Watch the moves-left counter: when it turns red you are in the danger zone. New Game reshuffles the board at any time.

Winning and losing

You win the instant the last off-color cell joins your region — the board settles into one solid color and a banner shows your score, which is submitted to the leaderboard for that difficulty (when signed in; offline wins upload later). If you make your final allowed move and the board is still mixed, the round is lost — no score is submitted, and you can retry a fresh board immediately. Your best score per difficulty is remembered on this device.

How scoring works

Score = moves left × 500 + cells on the board − seconds taken, clamped between 1 and 99,999, and only wins are scored. Unspent moves dominate the formula: every move you save is worth 500 points, while the cell count (100, 196 or 324) is a flat bonus that rewards bigger boards, and each second gently trims one point. Example: finishing Hard with 6 moves to spare in 90 seconds scores 6×500 + 324 − 90 = 3,234. An efficient Easy win can out-score a sloppy Hard one, but mastering Hard with many moves left is where the big numbers live.

Flood strategy that wins games

  • Work toward the largest color mass. Before each pick, scan for the biggest blob of a single color near your frontier and steer your region so one future pick swallows it whole — one giant absorption beats three small ones.
  • Think two moves ahead, not one. The best pick is often not the color touching you most now, but the one that lines your border up against a huge mass you can take next turn. Chain your picks like combos.
  • Leave the corners for last. The far corners cost moves to reach and rarely unlock anything behind them. Expand through the middle first — central territory touches the most neighbours and keeps every option open; the corners fall automatically in the endgame.
  • Count colors in the endgame. When only a few patches remain, the minimum number of moves is just the number of distinct leftover colors — pick them in the order that merges the most patches per move and never spend two picks where one would do.
  • Avoid greedy picks that gain a thin strip of border while a rival mass sits one move away. If two colors would absorb similar amounts now, choose the one whose absorption also presses your frontier against the next big region.

Frequently asked questions

How exactly is the score calculated?

Score = moves left × 500 + number of cells on the board − seconds taken, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 99,999. Only wins score; a loss submits nothing. The cell counts are 100 on Easy, 196 on Medium and 324 on Hard, so the real currency is unspent moves — each one is worth 500 points. Each difficulty has its own leaderboard.

Why can’t I pick the color my region already is?

Because it would change nothing — your region would repaint to its own color and absorb nobody. Rather than silently burning one of your precious moves, the game disallows the pick entirely: the button for your current color is dimmed, and tapping it (or a cell of that color inside your region) shows a reminder without spending a move.

I have trouble telling the colors apart. Is there any help?

Yes. Every color is paired with a unique shape symbol — for example the red cells carry a dot, the orange ones a triangle, the green ones a square — printed on every cell and on every picker button. The palette itself was also chosen to stay distinguishable on the dark background for the most common forms of color-vision deficiency, so you can play entirely by shape if you prefer.

I keep running out of moves. Any advice?

Drop down a difficulty and practise the two habits that matter most: aim your flood at the largest same-color mass rather than the nearest one, and keep the corners for last. Count the distinct colors left on the board — that number is the absolute minimum of moves you still need, which tells you early whether you are on pace or need to take bigger absorptions.

Does Color Flood work offline?

Yes. After the page loads once, board generation and the whole game run locally in your browser with no connection. Scores earned offline are stored on your device and upload to the leaderboard automatically the next time you are online and signed in.