crokocat

Colony Flow tactics: how to send ant crews without jamming every stand

Published August 17, 2026 · Updated August 21, 2026

UnTileSend ants, clear the pixel artPlay now

Ant colony puzzles look like they play themselves — tap a box, a crew of ants marches off, tiles disappear. They don't, and the reason every run ends the same way is one rule people skim past: an ant can only carry off a tile that has a clear straight line to the edge of the picture. Colour alone is not enough. If a tile of the right colour is walled in, the crew you sent has no work to do, so it parks on a stand and waits — and a waiting crew is a stand you no longer own.

The ray rule is the whole puzzle

Every board in this family — Colony Flow, Jelly Busters, UnTile on crokocat — is a pixel art picture built from coloured tiles, plus queues of boxes, each box holding a crew of ants of a single colour. Tap the front box of a queue and it takes one of five stands; its ants run to the picture, trot around the edge and dive in. What they can actually pick up is decided by geometry, not by how many tiles of that colour exist.

A tile is reachable when a straight line runs from it to open air outside the picture with nothing in between. That is why these pictures peel from the outside in: the rim goes first, and each tile you remove opens a lane for whatever was hiding behind it. Before every tap, look at the colour you are about to send and ask a single question — is at least one tile of that colour sitting on an open ray right now? If the answer is no, the tap is a mistake, no matter how much of that colour is on the board.

Nothing in UnTile is timed and there is nothing to dodge. That sounds forgiving, and mostly it is, but it also means the game never rescues you from a bad order. The only pressure in a level is the pressure your own taps create.

How you actually lose: five stands, all waiting

There are five stands, and a crew occupies its stand until it has finished carrying its colour away. Send a crew whose colour is completely buried and it doesn't fail loudly — it just stands there, holding a slot hostage, waiting for you to uncover work for it. Do that five times and the colony has nowhere left to deploy. That jam is the one way to lose the level.

So the resource you are managing is not colour and it is not tiles — it is stands. Every tap spends one, and you only get it back when that crew finishes. A crew that clears eight tiles and leaves is cheap; one that clears a single tile and then waits for the rest of its colour to surface is expensive, and two or three of those in a row is how a comfortable board turns into a dead one.

The habit worth building is to keep at least one stand free at all times. A spare slot is what lets you react when a queue turns up a colour you need immediately — and it is the difference between a jam and a comeback. Filling the fifth stand should feel like a decision, not like the natural next tap.

Peel evenly, don't dig

The tempting way to play is to chase whichever colour is easiest right now, which usually means hammering one side of the picture until it is gone. It feels productive and it is the most common way people bury themselves. Strip one edge down to the core and the tiles you exposed are all in the same neighbourhood, while the colours sitting under the untouched side stay just as trapped as before.

Peel around the rim instead. Taking a layer off every side keeps the number of colours with open rays as high as possible, and a wide menu of legal moves is exactly what stops the stands from clogging. Think of the picture as an onion rather than a mine shaft.

There is a second reason to spread the work: the queues decide what you are offered next, not you. A picture peeled evenly almost always has a use for whatever colour turns up; one with a single side gouged out very often does not.

Linked boxes: two colours, one commitment

Later levels introduce boxes that are linked and only march as a pair. They hold their stands until both are empty, which turns one tap into a much bigger promise: you are now betting that both colours have reachable tiles, not just the one you were looking at.

Check the weaker half before you commit. A linked pair where one colour is wide open on the rim and the other is buried three layers deep is a slow-motion jam — the open crew finishes, the buried crew sits, and both stands stay locked because the pair clears together. If the second colour has nothing to do, spend a normal box first and come back to the pair once the picture has opened up.

Hidden colours are the other late-game wrinkle, and they work the opposite way round: they stay invisible until you clear the tiles around them. You cannot plan for a colour you cannot see, so treat unexplained gaps in a palette as a warning that the picture has more in it than it is showing, and keep that spare stand free for the surprise.

Lives, coins and the 260-picture run

UnTile holds over 260 hand-picked pixel art pictures — animals, food, characters, small scenes and kaleidoscope patterns — and each level carries its own palette, so the colour-counting instinct you build on one board does not fully transfer to the next. That variety is the reason the game stays interesting well past the point where you have internalised the ray rule.

The economy is gentle. You have five lives, a lost level costs one, and they refill on their own at one every half hour. Wins pay coins, and coins buy an instant retry, so a level that beats you costs a short break at worst. Everything is stored on your device, so you can close the tab mid-picture and come back to the same board. Since nothing is timed, the right speed is however long it takes you to check the rays.

Jelly Busters tips that transfer, and one that doesn't

If you arrived from Jelly Busters or Colony Flow, most of your instincts are portable. Edge-first clearing, watching your free slots, and reading the picture as layers rather than as a pile of colours all behave the same way here — the underlying rule about a clear path to the outside is shared across the family, and it is the rule that makes these puzzles puzzles rather than tapping exercises.

The habit that does not transfer is speed. Colony Flow! climbed the 2026 mobile charts on half a million downloads and a 4.5-star crowd, and Moon Active's Jelly Busters took a top-100 puzzle spot with the same picture-busting idea. UnTile has no timer at all: the tap you did not make yet costs you nothing, while the tap you made without checking costs you a stand.

One more small thing that pays off: watch the fronts of the queues, not just the board. Knowing a colour is two boxes away changes whether it is worth uncovering now or letting it wait.

Play UnTile free in your browser

UnTile runs on crokocat with no download and no sign-up, on desktop, phone or tablet. Click a box to send its crew to a stand on desktop; on mobile it is a tap and the board scales to the screen. It was built from scratch for crokocat in 2026 and tuned for both mouse and touch.

If the sorting itch is what brought you here, two neighbours on the same portal scratch it differently. Rainbow Sort drops marbles from trays onto a moving conveyor and asks you to pack each one into the box of its colour before the belt overflows — the same question about committing space, at speed. Gem Sort is the flask-and-pour classic: gems land only on their own colour or in an empty flask, every level is checked by a solver before you see it, and undo is free and unlimited.

Rainbow SortRoll every marble into its colorPlay nowGem SortSort the sparklePlay now

Frequently asked questions

How do you play an ant colony puzzle like UnTile?

Tap the front box of a queue and it moves to one of five stands, sending its crew of ants to the picture. The ants carry off tiles of their own colour, but only tiles with a clear straight line to the edge, so the picture peels from the outside in. Clear every tile to finish the level.

Why is my box just sitting on its stand doing nothing?

Its colour is still buried — no tile of that colour has a clear path to the edge yet, so the crew waits until you uncover one. Waiting crews keep their stands, and if all five stands fill with waiting crews the level is lost.

What is the best Colony Flow strategy for beginners?

Check reachability before colour: only send a crew if at least one tile of that colour has an open straight line to the edge. Keep one stand free as a buffer, and peel the picture evenly around the rim instead of digging one side down to the core.

What are linked boxes and hidden colours?

Linked boxes appear in later levels and march as a pair, holding their stands until both are empty — so check that both colours have work before committing. Hidden colours stay invisible until you clear the tiles around them, which is another reason to keep a stand spare.

Is UnTile free, and how do lives work?

It is free on crokocat with no download and no sign-up. You have five lives, a lost level costs one, and lives refill on their own at one every half hour. Wins pay coins and coins buy an instant retry, and progress is saved on your device.

Guides & tips

Play it here