Classic mode guide

What Classic mode is

Classic is the puzzle Harbor Escape started with. You get a harbor jammed with boats of different lengths, and the goal is simply to sail every one of them out. There are no colors to match, no freighters and no berths — only the question of order. Classic has 240 levels with a gradual difficulty curve, and it unlocks from More Modes on the home screen once you have cleared Berth Sort level 8.

The rules

• Boats sail straight ahead. A tapped boat moves in the direction its bow points and leaves only if the whole path to the edge is clear.
• Blocked taps cost a heart. Tapping a boat whose path is blocked is a crash and costs one heart. Quick repeated taps on the same boat within half a second only count once, so a nervous double-tap will not cost you two hearts.
• Hearts vary by level. Most levels give three hearts. From level 70 some levels give only two, and from level 190 a few give just one, so precision matters more and more.
• Rocks and buoys are fixed obstacles from level 3 onward. They never move; boats have to be routed around them.
• The timer. From level 11, almost every level has a countdown. In Classic the clock is strict: if it reaches zero, the level is lost.

Numbered boats

From level 21, some boats carry a number. That number drops by one every time any other boat sails out of the harbor. A numbered boat must leave before its count reaches zero; if it is still on the board at zero, the whole level fails with "A ship ran out of moves". Numbered boats appear in the large majority of Classic levels after they are introduced, so learn to spot them first.

How to handle them: count how many exits you can afford before each numbered boat must go. A boat showing 3 means you can clear at most two other boats before it has to leave. Plan your first moves around freeing that boat, not around whatever is easiest.

Bomb boats

From level 41, bomb boats appear. Their count drops the same way, but when a bomb reaches zero it explodes instead of failing the level. Every boat in the eight squares around it counts as a hit, and each hit costs you one star (you always keep at least one star for clearing the level).

How to handle them: either get the bomb out in time, or make sure its neighbors are gone before it goes off. A bomb sitting alone in open water is harmless. The Defuse booster, which unlocks at Classic level 41, removes the threat entirely.

Stars in Classic

You start every level on three stars. Each blocked tap and each boat caught in a bomb blast takes one away, down to a minimum of one star for a clear. Using a continue after failing also limits the level to one star. A perfect three-star clear therefore means: no crashes and no bomb hits.

How Classic differs from Berth Sort

	Classic	Berth Sort
Goal	Empty the harbor	Load every freighter
Colors	None	Every boat has a color
Berths	None	A few parking spaces; full berths lose the level
Timer	Running out always fails the level	Only fails on Hard and Super Hard levels
Numbered boats	Reaching zero fails the level	Reaching zero costs one heart
Bombs	Yes, from level 41	No
Boosters	Undo, Freeze, Remove, Defuse	Undo, Call boat, Extra berth, Freeze

A way to solve any Classic level

1. Find the free boats. Before tapping, scan for every boat whose path is already clear. These are your possible first moves.
2. Find the deadline. Look for numbered and bomb boats and note the smallest number on the board. That is how many moves you have before something must happen.
3. Work backwards from the hardest boat. Pick the boat that looks most trapped and ask what has to leave before it can move. Follow that chain back until you reach a free boat. That chain is usually your opening.
4. Watch long boats across lanes. A three-square boat lying across several lanes blocks all of them. Clearing one long boat often frees three or four short ones at once.
5. Do not waste free exits. When a numbered boat is ticking, every exit lowers its count. Do not clear "easy" boats that do not help, because each one burns a count.

Example: a ticking boat behind a wall

Say a boat marked 2 points right, and two other boats stand in its path. Both blockers can sail away, so the obvious plan is to clear them one by one. Count it out first: the first exit drops the number to 1, the second drops it to 0 — and the numbered boat is still on the board, so the level fails. No order of those two exits helps.

The way out is the Remove booster. Lifting a boat out with Remove clears it from the board without counting as an exit, so the counter does not drop. Remove one blocker, sail the other (counter 1), and the numbered boat gets out with a count to spare. If you only notice the problem after the first exit, Undo takes that move back so you can try the Remove line instead. Before spending a booster, though, check whether a different order frees the ticking boat with fewer exits — tackling it before anything else leaves is often the intended route. Doing this counting before the first tap is the core skill of Classic.

Boosters in Classic

Undo unlocks at Classic level 5, Freeze at level 11, Remove at level 15 and Defuse at level 41. You also get one free hint per level (from level 3). Read the boosters guide for details.