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Screw colour-sorting puzzles

Free packv3.0.0-12DPhysics

The rules of a screw-sorting physics puzzle. Tap the screws nothing covers and each goes into a box of its colour or a small waiting buffer; full boxes leave and new ones open, plates swing and fall as their screws go, and the board must be cleared before the buffer overflows.

This is a Free pack. Every phaser.io account can use it in their games.

Released October 19, 2026

Screw colour-sorting puzzles: a screenshot of its demo
A note about these graphics

Expansion packs don't come with graphics. This screenshot is one way of drawing what the pack does, made for its demo: none of the sprites, tiles or backgrounds in it are in the pack.

That's by design. A pack is a game's logic, mechanics and effects, and it works with whatever art you give it. Some packs draw effects, backdrops or 3D scenes of their own, but none carries a game's sprites.

So the look is yours. Make the art on phaser.io, bring your own, or let your agent draw it in code: the same pack can look like anything.

What it does

game.screwSort.create(level) makes a game of a level, and tap(screw) is the only move. A covered screw stays put. An uncovered one goes into the open box of its colour if one has room, or else into the waiting buffer. When a box is full it leaves and the next box in the queue opens, and any screws of its colour waiting in the buffer board it at once. Clear the board with the buffer empty to win; tap a screw with the buffer full and the level is lost to overflow.

The plates and screws are a plate-stack stack that belongs to the level, so plates of any shape lie in layers, cover the screws beneath them, swing on their last screw and fall when it goes, on real rigid-body physics. That is what makes the order of taps a puzzle: the screw you can reach now may not be the one the open boxes want.

A generator lays out layered bars, squares, discs or a mix, with screws in colours that fill whole boxes exactly, and a search proves each level can be cleared and records its solution. The game reports every take, boarding, full box, opened box, fall, win and loss as events, and view() gives the plates, the screws, the open boxes, the queue still to open, the buffer and its capacity, for your game to draw.

Features

  • One-tap play — tap(screw) says whether the screw went to a box, to the buffer, or nowhere because it is covered.
  • Colour boxes and a queue — boxes of a set capacity open in order, a set number at a time.
  • A waiting buffer — a few slots whose screws board the next box of their colour by themselves.
  • Plates on real physics — layered polygons that cover, swing and fall, through plate-stack.
  • Generated levels — bars, squares, discs or a mix, in layers, with colours that fill whole boxes, from a seed.
  • A solver — solve(level) finds an order of taps that clears it.
  • Saves and restarts — snapshot and restore replay the moves, and restart starts over.
  • Validation — each colour's screws must fill its boxes exactly, and validate says when they do not.

Good for

  • Screw-sorting puzzles in the style of Screw Jam, with colour boxes and a buffer.
  • Tap-to-sort casual games — the box-and-buffer rule on layered plates that must be cleared in the right order.
  • Seeded daily puzzles — generated levels that are always clearable.
  • Difficulty ladders — more plates and layers, fewer open boxes or a tighter buffer as the levels climb.

Make it yours

A level is a plate-stack spec with every screw coloured, plus boxes (the colour of each box, in the order they open), capacity (3 screws a box), open (2 boxes at a time) and buffer (5 slots). generate takes a seed, width and height (600 by 820), plates (8), layers (4), shapes ('bars', 'squares', 'discs' or 'mix'), colours, capacity, open, buffer and plateColours.

Two different uses: a relaxed level of eight mixed plates in four layers, with two boxes open and a five-slot buffer; and a hard level of bars only, with more plates and layers, a single box open at a time and a buffer of three, where every tap has to be planned.

A quick look

A generated level played by tapping screws:

const level = game.screwSort.generate({ seed: 3, plates: 9, layers: 4 });
const play = game.screwSort.create(level);
game.step('screws', dt => {
    const p = game.input.pointer;
    if (p?.pressed) {
        const screw = play.view().screws.find(s => Math.hypot(s.x - p.x, s.y - p.y) < 24);
        if (screw) play.tap(screw.id);                    // 'box', 'buffer', or null when it is covered
    }
    play.step(dt);
});

Works with

  • plate-stack — the plates, screws and physics under every level.
  • screw-relocate — the screw-moving game on the same plates, where screws go into free holes.
  • pull-pin — another casual physics puzzle, of pins pulled to free what they hold.

Good to know

  • The search works from where the plates start; the real plates swing as they lose screws, which can uncover more, or for a moment cover something.
  • Every colour's screws must fill its boxes exactly, which is what makes sure waiting screws always find a box in the end.
  • generate throws when no clearable level comes of the options it is given.
  • It draws nothing: the view gives the plates, screws, boxes, queue and buffer to draw.

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