How to Play Flood It
Flood It is a colour puzzle with one control. Every move you pick a colour, and the block you own in the top left corner changes to it, swallowing any touching squares of that colour as it grows.
Turn the whole board one colour before you run out of moves. The allowance is generous enough to be fair and tight enough to punish greed.
Play Flood ItHow to play
- Your region starts as the single square in the top left corner.
- Choose a colour from the row below the board. Your whole region becomes that colour and absorbs every touching square of it.
- The counter under the board shows moves used against the allowance for that board size.
- Fill the board before the allowance runs out. You can keep playing afterwards, it just no longer counts as a clean win.
Strategy
Grabbing the most squares each turn feels right and is often wrong. What matters is reach: the colour that stretches your region into a new area opens up far more for the next few moves than the one that picks up a fat clump beside you.
Look at the far corners early. The board is won or lost by whether your region arrives there with moves to spare, so steer towards the parts that are hardest to reach while you still have room to manoeuvre.
Near the end, count. If two colours are left in scattered patches, the order you take them in decides whether you finish on time.
Frequently asked questions
How many moves do you get in Flood It?
It depends on the board. A 14 by 14 board with six colours gives 25 moves, and a 26 by 26 board gives 46, scaled from the size and the number of colours.
Can every Flood It board be finished?
Yes. Boards are random but the allowance is set so a sensible player finishes with moves to spare.
Does picking the biggest colour always work?
No, and that is the heart of the game. Reaching new ground usually beats collecting squares you could have taken later anyway.