Flood Fill Puzzle Unblocked
One corner, six colors, a strict move budget: grow your patch until the board is a single shade.
What is Flood Fill Puzzle?
Flood Fill Puzzle is a single-player color puzzle on a grid of randomly painted squares. Each move recolors the patch that starts in the top left corner, and any matching neighbors join it. The goal is to make the whole grid one color without going over the move limit.
- Category
- Puzzle Games
- Players
- 1 player
- Plays on
- Phone, tablet & desktop
- Input
- Mouse, Keyboard, Touch
- Made by
- Simon Tatham
- Checked
Flood Fill Puzzle is one of those games you understand in five seconds and keep thinking about long after. A board of colored squares sits in front of you, and you only ever control one patch, the one anchored in the top left corner. Pick a new color and that patch changes to it, swallowing every touching square of the same shade. Play it unblocked here and you will find the real challenge is the tiny move budget, which is calculated by a solver, so wasted clicks add up fast. It is Flood, from Simon Tatham’s well-known puzzle collection.
Rules of the Spill
Clicking any square on the board tells the game which color you want. Your corner patch turns that color, and every square of that color sharing a side with the patch is absorbed. Diagonal touches do not count.
The line under the grid reads something like “4 / 22 moves”. Reach a single-color board at or below the second number and you see COMPLETED. Go past it and the line switches to FAILED, though you can still play on.
You start on a 12x12 board at Easy with six colors. The Type menu also lists Medium and Hard, a bigger 16x16 board and versions with just three or four colors. Custom goes further: any width and height, from 3 up to 10 colors, and your own number of spare moves (Easy gives five, Medium two, Hard none).
Clicking the color you already have costs nothing. The counter only moves when the patch really changes.
Flood Fill Puzzle controls
| To do this | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recolor your patch | Arrow keys to move the cursor, then Enter | Left-click any square of that color | Tap any square of that color |
| Step back or forward | U / R | Undo move / Redo move buttons | Undo move / Redo move buttons |
| Deal a fresh grid | N | New game button | New game button |
| Pick board size, color count or difficulty | — | Type menu | Type menu |
Thinking Like the Solver
A good run is less about grabbing the biggest bite each turn and more about shaping the patch. Some ideas that help:
- Reach diagonally across the board. A long arm stretching toward the bottom right touches far more squares than a fat blob in the corner. More border means bigger bites later.
- Finish a color off. If every remaining square of one color is touching your patch, take it now. That color will never need a move again.
- Watch the lonely squares. One stray square of a rare color in a far pocket can cost a full move at the very end. Route toward it while you are grabbing other colors.
- Count before clicking. When two choices look similar, count how many squares each adds, including the ones it unlocks behind them.
- Test with Undo. Play three moves one way, undo, play three another way, and keep whichever leaves fewer colors on the board.
On Hard, remember the solver is good but not perfect. Beating its count is possible on some grids.
How It Fits Among Our Puzzles
Rounds take a minute or two, which makes this a strong pick for a short break. It feels different from most color games because nothing moves around; only one region grows. If you prefer pouring and sorting, try Color Pour Sort, and for another quick color-clearing grid, Same Game Blocks is a good next stop.
Flood Fill Puzzle: questions players ask
Is every Flood Fill Puzzle grid beatable?
Yes. The game solves each new grid itself and sets the move limit from that answer, adding spare moves on the easier settings. So there is always a route that finishes on or under the limit.
How do you win Flood on Hard?
Hard gives you zero spare moves, so you must tie the solver. Plan two or three colors ahead, favor moves that reach toward the far corner, and use Undo to compare orders before committing.
Can I keep playing after the counter says FAILED?
Yes. Going over only changes the status line. You can still finish the board for practice, undo several steps to find a tighter route, or restart the same grid from the beginning.
Does it work offline or on a phone?
It runs fully in the browser from FreezeNova's own files, so once loaded it needs no extra downloads. Tapping a square works the same as clicking, and the board scales to small screens.
Credits and license
Flood Fill Puzzle was created by Simon Tatham and released as open source. FreezeNova hosts a lightly adapted copy on its own server, together with the original license file.
- Source code: git.tartarus.org/simon (original project)
- Code license: MIT
- Art & audio: MIT (all graphics are drawn by the game code; no images or audio)
- Our changes: New name for this site. It is the author's own web build with off-site links taken out, sized to fit our player, and given press-and-hold touch support. Nothing in the puzzle code was changed.
