colonyflow Level 74

Overview

Level 74 is a Normal six-color stage built around a cute cat portrait — a blue-and-white cat head above an orange-and-yellow body, framed on a pale backdrop. Pink is the largest area of the picture, followed by orange, cyan, blue and yellow in the middle layers, with brown as the small outline and accent color and tiny trace colors scattered on top. The tiles are stacked in layers, so the clearing follows the portrait from the outside in: pink and orange leave first, then cyan and blue, then yellow, and brown finishes at the bottom. With six colors competing for only five queue slots, disciplined queue switching is the whole challenge.

• Difficulty: Regular (Normal)
• Estimated moves: 25–35 taps

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Open with pink. Pink is the outermost and largest layer of the portrait, so nothing underneath it can be carried away until it is gone. Tap the pink tile and let the ants start the long outer clear.
2. Move to orange next. Orange forms the lower body of the cat and sits just inside the pink layer. Clear it in one push so the body starts disappearing and the colors beneath show through.
3. Work the cyan and blue phases. Cyan and blue form the cat's head and were covered by the outer colors, so they only become reachable now. Clear them one after another in continuous pushes and use the 2x speed-up button to shorten the wait.
4. Clear the trace colors (red, purple, black, gray) as they are exposed. These small accents hide inside the portrait, and the efficient play is to spend free queue slots on them immediately so they never block a slot during the main pushes.
5. Finish with yellow and brown. These are the bottom layers of the picture, so they only become reachable at the very end. Sweep them in bulk; since they are the final colors, it is safe to fill the queue and let the ants finish the board.
6. Watch the board approach the cleared state: as the last tiles are carried away, the portrait disappears completely and the level-complete overlay with five white input slots appears.

Strategy & Reasoning

The removal order is dictated by the layer geometry: pink covers the portrait, orange and cyan sit on the middle layers, and brown is the bottom layer, so the sequence pink → orange → cyan → blue → yellow → brown keeps the ants on reachable tiles. Pink is the strategic bottleneck — it is the largest single area, and the correct play is to give it a long uninterrupted run while using spare queue slots for the small trace colors. With six colors and only five queue slots, the worst mistake is pushing two large colors at once, which leaves no room for small colors and forces waiting. The efficient play is to alternate a main color with small trace colors so the ants are almost never idle, and to save Magnet and Lightning only for rescuing a jammed queue.

Tips & Common Mistakes

• Running pink and orange at the same time jams the five slots and stalls the board. Finish one main color before starting the next.
• Ignoring the small trace colors until the queue is full leaves an unmatchable tile blocking the line. Clear every exposed accent immediately with a free slot.
• Opening a "?" tile while the queue is full can block the line. Open unknown tiles only when a queue slot is free.

Key Frames