Colony Flow! Level 18 Walkthrough

Board Notes

Layout

The board opens in portrait view. The top of the screen holds a pixel-art hamburger: an orange top bun with a few small cream/yellow sesame-seed cells, a thin bright-green lettuce stripe, a thick dark-brown meat patty in the middle, a thin red tomato band below the patty, an orange bottom bun, and a dark black outline wrapping the whole silhouette. A single dark round ant hole sits on a dirt strip directly below the pixel art, and a stream of small dark ants is already climbing up the trail in the very first frame. Below the dirt strip, the working area has a 5-cell top row of buffer slots and a 4x4 supply grid of numbered cube stacks. The 5-cell buffer row opens with the 19 black stack in slot 1 and the 26 red stack in slot 2, with the other three buffer slots empty. The 4x4 supply grid below reads, top to bottom and left to right: 25 orange / 25 orange / 30 green / 26 red on row 1, 25 red / 25 red / 15 red / 25 black on row 2, 25 red / 30 red / 15 red on row 3 (slot 4 empty), and 30 red / 15 red on row 4 (slots 3 and 4 empty)., all with low counters.

Goal

Orange cubes from the two 25 orange stacks plus the late 10 orange / 5 orange / 8 orange / 7 orange / 1 orange refill waves must fill the top bun, the bottom bun, and the curved bun edges. Green cubes from the 30 green / 30 green stacks and the 19 green / 23 green / 1 green / 3 green refill waves must fill the bright-green lettuce stripe plus the small green corner accents. Brown cubes from the 25 brown / 23 brown / 18 brown / 16 brown refill waves must fill the dark-brown meat patty band. Red cubes from the 26 red / 25 red / 25 red / 15 red / 25 red / 25 red / 30 red / 15 red / 30 red / 15 red stacks plus the 12 red / 20 red / 24 red / 14 red / 9 red / 24 red / 4 red / 8 red / 27 red / 23 red / 24 red refill waves must fill the red tomato band, which is the largest single color region on the art. Cream / yellow cubes from the small 11 and 15 stacks that rise into the buffer must fill the tiny sesame-seed cells on the top bun. Black cubes from the 19 black, 33 black, 17 black, 14 black, 10 black, 12 black, 3 black, 3 black, 1 black refill waves plus the lone 25 black in the supply grid must fill the dark outline wrapping the bun, the patty, the lettuce, the tomato, and the small corner accents.

Opening

The first confirmed tap in the video is the 19 black stack in slot 1 of the 5-cell buffer row. It is the safest opener because the dark outline is the largest single structure on the art (it wraps the bun, the patty, the lettuce, the tomato, and the small corner accents), and the 19-stack is the only outline stack already in the buffer at start. Tapping it first starts drawing the dark outline along the bun edges and lets the very first ant wave clear the dirt strip before the next color enters. The second confirmed tap is the 26 red stack in slot 2 of the buffer row, which dispatches red ants up the same dirt path to start closing the thin red tomato band. As those two stacks drain, the supply grid below slides up and the next refill wave rises into the buffer: 33 black in slot 1, 25 brown in slot 2, 11 cream in slot 3, 15 cream in slot 4 (slot 5 still empty). The third confirmed tap is the 33 black, which keeps the dark outline filling; the 25 brown, 11 cream, and 15 cream are then tapped in order to bring the meat patty and the small sesame-seed cells into the art. After that four-stack combo, the buffer shows 17 black in slot 1, 23 brown in slot 2, an empty slot 3, and 12 cream in slot 4 — a 17 + 23 refill pair that finishes the first patty wave. The two empty buffer slots (3 and 5) are kept open for the next color wave.

Danger Zone

The danger zone is the moment right after the first 25 brown / 23 brown refill pair is drained and the buffer lands on the 14 black, 12 red, 20 red, 24 red wave. The 14 black, 12 red, 20 red, 24 red all need to be tapped in quick succession to keep the red tomato band filling, and tapping the 14 black late lets red ants walk a path that has no outline cells to land on, so the first red cubes stall on the still-empty outline edges and the next 9 red / 24 red refill pair gets stuck behind them. The other trap is firing the 10 dark and 10 orange from the 10 dark / 10 orange / 14 red wave back to back. The orange bun cells share the dirt path with the dark outline cells, and a premature orange click sends orange ants onto still-empty bun edges that the dark outline has not yet closed, which strands the late 19 green / 23 green refill pair on the perimeter. Tapping the 9 red before the 10 dark is also bad, because red ants walk a path that the 10 dark is still drawing and stall on the still-empty outline cells of the tomato band. Finally, parking any red, orange, or green cube in one of the empty buffer slots while a black or brown wave is mid-routing is a sure way to strand the next refill wave before it can rise into the active row.

Mechanics

Level 18 is a four-row supply-grid color-routing board with a single ant hole, a 5-cell buffer row on top, and a pixel-art completion goal. Unlike the 3x3 boards in Levels 15 and 16 which keep their nine stacks in a fixed starting grid, this board has a tall 4x4 supply grid that feeds the active buffer row as the player taps, so the same color can refill the buffer four or five times during the run. The hamburger pixel art has six distinct color regions (orange bun, green lettuce stripe and small green corner accents, brown patty, red tomato, cream sesame seeds, black outline) all sharing the same dirt path, and the tomato band is by far the largest single color region, so the routing trick is to open with the 19 black outline so the outline is already running when the red tomato flood starts, and to keep cycling red, black, brown, green, and orange waves so no single color starves the buffer. The 11 cream and 15 cream stacks are the smallest stacks on the board and act as the sesame-seed detail cells; they go in immediately after the first brown wave and never appear again. so the very last 1 orange cube and the surviving 3 black, 1 black cubes still need a clean delivery after the bottom of the grid looks clear.