Magic Sort hard levels are mostly about empty space. Every pour has to land on a matching color or in an empty bottle, so a Hard or Super Hard board is usually lost a few moves early, when the last free bottle gets filled with the wrong color. This guide explains how the Grand Games water sort puzzle works, which obstacles hide colors from you, what the three boosters and the 900-coin extra bottle do, and where to find a real video walkthrough for levels 99, 129, 359, 369 and 394, the levels players search for most. Charts and store details were checked at 01:45 UTC on October 23, 2026.
Table of Contents
Quick answer
- Keep an empty bottle free as long as you can. Grand Games’ own Quick Play Guide says to plan ahead and avoid dead ends, and the hardest boards are the ones with too many colors for too few bottles.
- Uncover the “?” layers first. On many hard boards the lower layers are hidden, so moves that reveal colors are worth more than moves that only look tidy.
- Use boosters before you’re stuck. The tools are Undo, Shuffle and +1 bottle. App Store reviewers say that once you’re out of moves, the only choices are to restart or pay 900 coins for an extra bottle.
- Labels matter: levels 99, 129, 359 and 369 show a red “Super Hard” tag in walkthrough videos, and 394 a purple “Hard” tag.
- Stuck on a number? Search YouTube for “Magic Sort level” plus the number. Floras Gaming, Puzzle Pilot, Tutorial Workspace and Nova’s Puzzle Den have the most-watched videos. Check that the board matches yours first.
- Ads and purchases: both stores say the game contains ads. Apple’s top purchases run from $0.99 (Starter Bundle) to $19.99 (Sorcerer Bundle), and there’s no stand-alone “No Ads” item.
Magic Sort! at a glance
| iPhone / iPad | Android | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Grand Games A.Ş. (also makes Block Out!) | Grand Games A.Ş. |
| Released | May 28, 2024 | 10M+ downloads |
| Rating | 4.7 from about 698,000 ratings | 4.6 from about 601,000 ratings |
| Chart (Oct 23) | #3 Top Free Games, #32 Top Grossing Games (US) | “#5 top free puzzle” on its Play page |
| Age rating | 13+ (lists loot boxes, advertising, messaging and chat, frequent contests) | Everyone |
| Ads | “Advertising” in the age-rating box | “Contains ads” |
| Size / requirement | 617.9 MB, iOS 13.0 or later | Varies by device |
| Latest update | Version 33.69, October 20 (“New 100 levels!”) | October 17, 2026 |
In February, Deconstructor of Fun estimated that Magic Sort! made more than $40 million in its first year. It called the gameplay standard water sort and said the difference was polish and a steady events calendar. For the rest of the genre, see our ranking of the best color sort games on iPhone and Android, where Magic Sort! is our water-sort pick.
How Magic Sort! works
The rules come straight from the “Quick Play Guide” in the official App Store listing. Tap a bottle to pick it up and another to pour. You can pour only onto a matching top color, and only if the bottle has room. You win when every bottle holds a single color. If you get stuck, Grand Games points you to Undo, which reverses moves, and Shuffle, which rearranges the bottles. The same text mentions a cauldron where you “stir up boosts” and ingredients you gather to brew stronger magic.
Two things make the game feel endless. First, levels arrive in bulk: every App Store update since February 28 has had the same note, “New 100 levels!”, and there have been 25 of those updates. Second, the difficulty doesn’t climb in a straight line. Reviewers describe a run of normal levels, then a Hard or Super Hard level every few stages, with a noticeable jump after about level 200.
Water sort is genuinely hard in a mathematical sense, too. A 2022 paper by Takehiro Ito and colleagues, “Sorting Balls and Water”, proves that deciding whether a water sort board can be solved is NP-complete. In plain terms, there’s no simple rule that always finds the solution. The paper also studies how many empty bins are enough to make any board solvable, which is the practical point for players: free space decides whether a level can be won.
Three board styles from the store art: small bottles with one long tube, extra-tall tubes, and a classic finish. Image: Grand Games
Magic Sort obstacles: hidden colors, curtains and locks
Grand Games doesn’t publish a list of obstacles, so here’s what its own store art and the walkthrough videos actually show:
| Obstacle | What it looks like | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| “?” layers | Dark layers with a question mark below the top color | You can’t see those colors until the layers above them are poured off |
| Covered bottles | A bottle wrapped in a white cloth with a small colored potion tag | You can’t see what’s inside. The tag shows one color, which hints at what’s under the cloth |
| Curtains | Red curtains over a block of bottles (store art) | Hide part of the board until something opens them |
| Locked crates and keys | Wooden crates with pink or blue padlocks, and matching keys floating in the liquid | The crate stays shut until the matching key is freed, so the bottle holding the key becomes a priority |
| Small numbered bottles | Small bottles on a stand with a number (3 in the store art) | Smaller than a normal bottle. The art doesn’t explain the number |
| Tall tubes | Very tall tubes with a dozen or more stacked layers | Lots of room, but colors are buried deep |
The store art and videos don’t explain the exact rules for covered bottles, curtains, crates or numbered bottles. Watch the in-game tutorial the first time each one appears. The “?” layers matter most: one reviewer complains that you “can’t see what colors are in the tubes”, which turns a level into guesswork if your empty bottles are already used up.
Curtains, padlocked crates and matching pink and blue keys inside the bottles. Image: Grand Games
How to beat Magic Sort hard levels
We can’t play the levels ourselves. These tips are the points that agree across Grand Games’ Quick Play Guide, Industry.co.id’s Magic Sort tips guide (September 2026), tutorial videos such as Tutorial Workspace’s “How To Plan Moves Ahead in Magic Sort!”, and long-time players in App Store reviews:
- Read the whole board before the first pour. Count how many bottles each color is spread across and how many empty bottles you have. Grand Games’ advice is to “plan to avoid dead ends”, and Industry.co.id says to plan several moves ahead rather than rush.
- Treat an empty bottle as your last resort. Industry.co.id says not to fill empty bottles too quickly and to keep at least one free for emergencies. One reviewer near level 900 says the hardest levels are the ones with “too many colors and too few bottles”, which is the same thing from the other side.
- Reveal hidden layers early. When a bottle has “?” layers, pouring off its top tells you what’s underneath while you still have room to react. A move that only stacks two colors you can already see can wait.
- Go after keys and covered bottles on purpose. If a key is sitting in a bottle, clearing the colors above it opens a crate. That gives you more room than any single pour.
- Finish one color at a time. A completed bottle is out of the way for good. Industry.co.id’s hard-level advice is to work on one color at a time instead of half-sorting several.
- Use Undo instead of restarting. Both Grand Games and Industry.co.id point to Undo when a move goes wrong. One App Store reviewer says a restart can bring back a different arrangement of colors, so you may not get the same board again.
Magic Sort boosters, coins and lives
The three boosters
Three booster buttons sit under the board in walkthrough videos, each with a stock counter:
| Booster | What it does | Best moment to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Undo | Reverses your last move (named in Grand Games’ guide) | Right after a pour that blocks a color |
| Shuffle | Rearranges the bottles (named in Grand Games’ guide) | When the visible tops give you no useful pours |
| +1 bottle | Adds an empty bottle (reviewers call it “+1 bottle” or “extra bottle”) | While you still have a move left, not after |
The timing is the key tip. Two App Store reviewers say boosters have to be used before you run out of moves. Once the board is stuck, the game offers only a restart or a paid continue, and several reviewers give that price as 900 coins for an extra bottle. One player near level 900 says a hard level gets much easier with that extra bottle. So if a Super Hard board is down to one empty bottle and you have a +1 bottle in stock, use it then. Don’t save it.
Lives, streaks and teams
Reviewers consistently put the cap at 5 lives. One says a life takes about 25 minutes to refill. Infinite-lives timers come from events and bundles, and an analysis of the shop by Gamigion (March 2026) found that every Magic Bundle includes timed infinite lives. Players also mention teams, where members can ask each other for lives, and a daily puzzle that doesn’t cost lives. Win streaks pay coins, so losing a Super Hard level can cost you a streak as well as a life. On a long streak, a booster is often cheaper than starting over.
Events pay out coins, which buy boosters and the 900-coin extra bottle. Image: Grand Games
Ads and in-app purchases in Magic Sort!
Google Play says “Contains ads”, and the App Store’s age-rating box lists advertising and loot boxes. Gamigion’s shop review says the game runs interstitial and banner ads, and that ad removal comes only inside the Magic Bundles, not as a separate purchase. Reviewers also say you can watch ads for coins and lives instead of paying.
The App Store lists these as the top in-app purchases (US prices). Apple shows only the top 10, so other items may exist:
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Starter Bundle | $0.99 |
| Special Offer | $0.99 or $9.99 |
| 1000 Coins | $1.99 |
| Apprentice Bundle | $4.99 |
| Endless Portal | $5.99 |
| 5000 Coins | $7.99 |
| Magician Bundle | $9.99 |
| 10000 Coins | $14.99 |
| Sorcerer Bundle | $19.99 |
For scale: at 900 coins per continue, the $1.99 pack covers one rescue with a little left over. Ignore the “unlimited free coins” hacks and generators on YouTube and download sites. They aren’t from Grand Games, and coin generators for online games are a common scam. The same “watch an ad or pay” trade-off comes up in our Block Out! hard levels guide and our Meowdoku tips.
Magic Sort level 99, 129, 359, 369 and 394 walkthroughs
We don’t publish move-by-move solutions we can’t check. A video lets you compare the board with your own screen before you copy anything. Here’s what YouTube had for the most-searched levels when we checked on October 23. The difficulty labels are the ones shown on the board in Floras Gaming’s videos.
| Level | Label shown | Walkthroughs from |
|---|---|---|
| 99 | Super Hard | Floras Gaming (about 17,000 views), Tutorial Workspace (about 8,400), Daisy Gaming, Mobile Games Helper (full levels 1-99 run) |
| 129 | Super Hard | Floras Gaming (about 14,000 views), Tutorial Workspace, Puzzle Pilot, Nova’s Puzzle Den (versions marked “updated 1/2026” and “updated 6/2026”) |
| 359 | Super Hard | Floras Gaming (about 24,000 views), Puzzle Gamer, Puzzle Pilot, Nova’s Puzzle Den (“updated 6/2026”) |
| 369 | Super Hard | Floras Gaming (about 34,000 views, the most watched of these), Garden Gamer, Puzzle Pilot |
| 394 | Hard | Floras Gaming (about 14,000 views), Puzzle Pilot, Nova’s Puzzle Den (“updated 1/2026” and “updated 6/2026”) |
Three cautions. First, these are fan channels, not Grand Games. Nova’s Puzzle Den has re-recorded the same levels as “updated 1/2026” and “updated 6/2026”, which suggests that some levels have changed since the older and most-viewed videos were made. Second, match the bottles, colors and obstacles to your screen before copying a sequence, and prefer the newest video if they differ. Third, “Marble Sort” walkthroughs with the same level numbers are a different game, and “magic sort level ###” pages on unrelated websites are auto-generated text with no real solution.
FAQ
Why are some Magic Sort levels marked Super Hard?
The label sits under the level number: purple for Hard, red for Super Hard. Those boards tend to have more colors, hidden “?” layers or obstacles, and fewer spare bottles. Reviewers say they come around every few levels, more often after about level 200.
Is every Magic Sort level solvable without boosters?
Grand Games doesn’t say. The walkthrough videos show that the most-searched levels can be cleared, but hidden layers mean some moves are partly guesswork, and some reviewers say a restart can bring back a different layout.
How many levels does Magic Sort have?
Grand Games doesn’t publish a total. Each update for months has added “New 100 levels”, and YouTube channels have already posted walkthroughs past level 2,000.
Is Magic Sort! the same company as Block Out!?
Yes, both are from Grand Games A.Ş. in Türkiye. Our trending puzzle games on iPhone and Android roundup covers the rest of the chart.
Sources: App Store listing, version history and reviews; Google Play listing; Apple Top Free Games feed; Deconstructor of Fun; Gamigion; Industry.co.id; Ito et al., “Sorting Balls and Water” (arXiv); YouTube walkthroughs by Floras Gaming, Tutorial Workspace and Garden Gamer. Checked October 23, 2026, 01:45 UTC.
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