colonyflow Level 33

Overview

Level 33 is a Normal three-color stage whose target picture is a pixel-art red popsicle: a red ice cream body (about 72% of tiles), a gray bite taken out (about 21%), and an orange stick (about 7%), with tiny pink, blue and black trace accents. The goal is to clear every tile by tapping the number tiles at the bottom so ants carry each color away. Because the tiles are stacked, the red body must leave first, then the gray bite, with the orange stick finishing as the bottom layer.

• Difficulty: Regular (Normal)
• Estimated moves: 25–40 taps

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Start by tapping the red tile. Red is the popsicle body and sits on the outermost layer, so it is reachable immediately. This is the largest single area on the board, so this is the long opening stretch. Keep the queue pointed at red in batches and use the 2x speed-up button in the top-right corner to shorten the wait.
2. While the red carry is running, clear the tiny pink, blue and black trace tiles opportunistically. They become reachable as the body comes off; tapping them whenever a slot opens keeps the ants busy without blocking a slot.
3. Continue tapping red until most of the body is carried off. Do not switch to gray until the red is nearly gone; any leftover red keeps covering the bite and blocks the ants' path inward.
4. When red is mostly gone, tap the gray tile. Gray is the bite taken out of the popsicle and was covered by the body, so it only becomes reachable now. Keep the queue pointed at gray in one continuous push and keep an eye on the queue.
5. Finish with the orange tile. Orange is the stick of the popsicle — the bottom layer — so it is the last color to be exposed. Because it is final, the queue can safely be filled with orange to speed up the finish.
6. Keep the five-slot queue under active control: with three main colors plus trace accents sharing five slots, push one main color plus at most one small color at a time, finish a color before starting the next, and never jam all five slots with mixed colors.

Strategy & Reasoning

The level is built around the layered-stacking rule: a color that covers others must be carried away first, and the removal order measured in the solution video is red, gray, orange, which matches the geometry of the popsicle. Clearing the red body before gray matters because it sits on top; tapping gray first would leave that bite buried. The queue is still the bottleneck — although only three main colors are present, the red body is so large that the worst mistake is filling all five slots with red, which leaves no room for the small traces and forces waiting. The efficient play is to alternate the huge red body carry with the small gray and trace colors so the ants are almost never idle. The 2x speed-up button should be active for the long red body carry, since that single step accounts for most of the level's waiting time. If the queue jams, the Magnet tool pulls one whole color out of the line, while the Eraser is reserved for a single stuck tile.

Tips & Common Mistakes

• Tapping the gray bite before the red body is gone is the classic mistake. The bite tiles are still covered, so the ants have no path to them; always clear the body first.
• Filling all five slots with red at once leaves no room for the small traces. Always follow a red tap with a finishable small color to free a slot.
• Ignoring the tiny pink, blue and black traces leaves slots blocked for no reason. Clear them opportunistically whenever a slot is free, instead of saving them all to the end.

Key Frames