Sorting puzzles feel like a juggling act until you notice a few simple habits. These five work for Fireflo, and for most games where you move things between containers.
1. Protect your free space
An empty jar, or a jar with space at the top, is your most valuable resource. Before you fill it, ask whether the move could wait. Spending free space early often leaves you with no way to maneuver later.
2. Look at the bottoms first
The fireflies at the bottom of a jar are the hardest to move, because everything above must go first. Find which colours are buried and plan how to free them. Gathering a colour is easiest when its first firefly is at the bottom of a jar of its own.
3. Plan the order, not just the move
Instead of asking “what can I pour?”, ask “what do I need to uncover, and what is in the way?” Then work out the sequence of pours that gets there. This is the same thinking as untangling a queue.
4. Count colours before you start
Knowing how many fireflies of each colour exist tells you how many jars you can fill completely. In mixing jars, it also tells you which colours you must create, and which you must keep.
5. Undo is a thinking tool
Try an idea, see where it leads, then undo if it does not work. Exploring is not cheating: it is how you learn the shape of the puzzle.
A worked example
Take four jars, three colours and three fireflies of each, with one jar empty. A calm solution takes only a handful of pours. First, use the empty jar to uncover a colour that is buried under another. Second, gather that colour into the jar where its first firefly sits at the bottom. Third, move on to the next colour, using whichever jar has just been freed. The idea is always the same: uncover, gather, free, repeat.
Common traps
- Filling the empty jar too early. It feels productive, but it removes your only manoeuvring room.
- Burying a colour you need soon. Before pouring on top of a colour, ask whether you will need it back.
- Pouring the same fireflies back and forth. If you find yourself undoing a move, pause and re-plan from scratch.
- Ignoring the bottoms. A colour that is stuck under others needs a plan, not luck.
The same ideas elsewhere
These habits work well for any puzzle where you move things between containers: sorting liquids, stacking cards, rearranging coins. The details change, but the principle stays: protect your free space, think about what is buried, and plan the order.