colonyflow Level 96

Overview

Level 96 is a Normal seven-color stage built around a lighthouse picture — a red lighthouse with blue waves on a pink background. Pink is the largest area of the picture, followed by blue and gray in the middle layers, with red, yellow, orange and cyan as the smaller accent colors and tiny trace colors scattered on top. The tiles are stacked in layers, so the clearing follows the lighthouse from the outside in: pink leaves first, then yellow, then blue and gray, then cyan and red, and orange finishes at the bottom. With seven 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 background layer of the lighthouse picture, so nothing underneath it can be carried away until the backdrop tiles are gone. Tap the pink tile and let the ants start the outer clear.
2. Move to yellow next. Yellow sits just inside the pink layer, and clearing it exposes the middle of the lighthouse. Keep the queue on one color at a time so the small tiles below do not get stuck.
3. Work the blue phase. Blue forms the waves and was covered by the outer colors, so it only becomes reachable now. Clear blue in one continuous push and use the 2x speed-up button to shorten the wait.
4. Work gray next. Gray tiles were covered by the brighter colors, so they only become reachable in the middle of the level. Clear gray in one push.
5. Clear the trace colors (brown, purple, black) as they are exposed. These small accents hide inside the lighthouse, and the efficient play is to spend free queue slots on them immediately so they never block a slot during the main pushes.
6. Finish with cyan, red and orange. 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. The lighthouse 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 and yellow cover the lighthouse, blue and gray sit on the middle layers, and orange is the bottom layer, so the sequence pink → yellow → blue → gray → cyan → red → orange 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 seven 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 blue at the same time jams the five slots and stalls the board. Finish the background before starting the wave color.
• 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