Special boats and obstacles

How special pieces are introduced

Harbor Escape adds new ideas slowly. In Berth Sort, each special boat or obstacle has a teaching level where it appears for the first time: the game pulses a ring around it and points at it, so you can see how it behaves before it becomes part of harder puzzles. The game does not give these pieces formal names, so this guide uses descriptive ones. The table lists them in the order you meet them.

Piece	Mode	First appears
Mystery boat	Berth Sort	Level 4
Garage	Berth Sort	Level 6
Rocks	Berth Sort / Classic	Level 21 / Classic level 3
Lock and key	Berth Sort	Level 31
Sandbar	Berth Sort	Level 41
Ice	Berth Sort	Level 51
Deadline boat	Berth Sort	Level 71
Fog	Berth Sort	Level 81
Numbered boat	Classic	Classic level 21
Bomb boat	Classic	Classic level 41

A useful rule for all of them: tapping a boat that is locked, iced or hidden in fog does nothing except make it wobble. It does not cost a heart. Only a real crash — a free-to-tap boat sailing into something — costs a heart.

Mystery boats

A mystery boat shows a question mark instead of its color. Its color is revealed for good as soon as its path to the edge is clear — the in-game tip says "This boat's color appears once it can leave". You can always tap it once it is revealed, and the color behaves like any other.

Tip: reveal mystery boats early, before you commit your berths. Clearing the boat in front of one costs nothing and tells you which freighter it belongs to. The Call boat booster can also lift a mystery boat if it turns out to match the current freighter.

Garages

A garage is a one-square building on the water with more boats waiting inside. Each time the boat at its door sails away, the next boat rolls out to take its place. Boats from a garage are always one square long, and each one counts toward the freighters like any other boat.

Tip: garages hide part of the color count. When you plan parking, remember that more boats are coming out, and keep the lane in front of the garage door clear so each new boat can leave quickly.

Rocks

Rocks never move. In Berth Sort they are placed away from every boat's sailing line, so a rock never stands between a boat and the open water; instead they change the shape of the harbor and take up space that boats would otherwise fill. In Classic, rocks (and buoys, the same obstacle with a different look) are real blockers that boats must be routed around.

Locks and keys

A locked boat is chained to the dock and cannot move at all. Somewhere on the board is a boat carrying the matching key. As soon as the key boat leaves the harbor — whether it boards a freighter or parks in a berth — the lock opens. A level can use up to three different keys, each with its own matching lock.

Tip: find the key boat first and work out what it costs to free it. If the locked boat matches the current freighter, it is often worth parking the key boat to open the lock right away. Note that Call boat cannot lift a locked boat; the lock is part of the puzzle.

Sandbars

A sandbar is a patch of shallow water with a number on it, usually between 2 and 6. It blocks boats just like a boat would, and sailing into it is a crash that costs a heart. Every time any boat leaves the harbor, the number drops by one; at zero the sandbar washes away and the lane opens.

Tip: a sandbar is a timer you control. If a boat behind a sandbar is the color you need later, you can simply clear other boats first and let the sand wash away by itself.

Ice

An iced boat is frozen in place under one to three layers of ice. A layer melts each time a boat directly next to it (above, below, left or right) leaves the harbor. When the last layer melts, the boat can move normally. The Call boat booster smashes the ice if it lifts an iced boat of the current freighter's color.

Tip: count the neighbors. A boat with three layers needs three departures next to it, so start working on its neighbors early instead of waiting until you need its color.

Deadline boats

A deadline boat carries a number that drops each time another boat leaves the harbor. If it is still on the board when the number reaches zero, you lose one heart and the boat becomes an ordinary boat. If that was your last heart, the level ends with "A ship ran out of moves". In Berth Sort, a missed deadline therefore costs a heart, not the whole level — but it also costs your chance at two or three stars.

Tip: deadline boats change the order you would naturally play. Free the boat with the smallest number first, even if that means parking its color for a while.

Fog

Fog covers part of the harbor. Boats inside it are invisible and cannot be tapped. As boats leave, the fog bank shrinks by one ring (every two departures in most levels; every single departure on level 81, the teaching level). Whatever was hidden then becomes visible and playable.

Tip: treat the fog as unknown colors. Keep a free berth in reserve while fog remains, because the boats it reveals may not match the freighter.

Flagship

Not an obstacle but a reward: in Berth Sort, if you board five boats in a quick combo, the game shows "Flagship!" and turns one blocked boat of the current freighter's color gold. Tapping that golden boat sends it on board even though its path is blocked. It happens at most once per level, so save the combo for a moment when a key boat is stuck.

Classic only: numbered boats and bombs

Classic mode has two special boats of its own. A numbered boat must leave before its number, which drops every time another boat sails out, reaches zero; if it does not, the level fails. A bomb boat counts down the same way, but at zero it explodes: every boat in the eight surrounding squares counts as a hit and costs one star. The Defuse booster turns a bomb boat into a normal boat. Read more in the Classic mode guide.

Things that are not in the game

If you have played other boat or car puzzles, you might expect pieces that Harbor Escape does not have: there are no portals or tunnels, no moving obstacles, no boats that change color, and no bombs in Berth Sort. If a guide elsewhere mentions them, it is about a different game.