Colony Flow Level 287 Walkthrough Solution & Guides | How to solve Colony Flow 287

Welcome to Colony Flow Level 287. This stage gives you a beautiful pixel art picture of a pink hedgehog sitting in a field of grass and colorful flowers. The image is bright and packed with detail but clearing it requires strict tray management to prevent a traffic jam in your limited space. You need to carve out paths from the bottom up to give your ants plenty of room to work and prevent your available slots from filling up with useless blocks.

Colony Flow Level 287 Overview

What You Are Working With

The board displays a large pixel art scene featuring a round pink hedgehog covered in dark brown spikes. The hedgehog rests on a thick layer of green grass dotted with white daisies and tall red and orange tulips on both sides. A solid background of light blue sky fills the entire upper half of the board. The nest hole sits directly at the bottom center of the screen. The tray at the bottom holds the numbered colored blocks you pull to deploy your ants. Many blocks in your tray are standard single blocks but you will also encounter connected boxes. These linked blocks drop into your waiting slots together and clear as a group.

What It Takes to Clear Level 287 Board

Clearing this level means removing every single colored tile from the picture without filling your five waiting slots with blocks that have nowhere to go. You must pull blocks that match the exposed outer edges of the picture because ants can only eat tiles they can physically reach. The lowest row of the picture is solid green grass and white flower petals. You have to break through this solid bottom barrier first to create an opening. Once the bottom is open your ants can stream upward to reach the inner hedgehog tiles and the massive sky background. You win the level when the final pixel vanishes from the board and the last ant returns to the nest.

Colony Flow Level 287 Step by Step Solution

Step 1: Clear the bottom layer of green grass and white flower petals to create your initial paths.

The very bottom edge of the pixel art consists entirely of green grass tiles and the lowest white pixels of the daisies. Your first move is to pull the green blocks from the front of the tray to get the process started. Pull the green block with 35 and the green block with 22 into your waiting slots. The green ants will immediately march out of the central nest hole and start munching away at the bottom row. Follow this up by pulling a white block to send white ants to the daisy petals on the right side. This action strips away the entire bottom layer of the scene and creates your first real workspace. Removing this layer is the only way to expose the stems of the tulips and the bottom edge of the hedgehog. You always want at least one path open so the ants do not get stuck waiting behind closed tiles.

Step 2: Deploy ants to clear the black outlines and the lower orange tulips on the sides.

With the bottom grass out of the way you open up fresh paths to the left and right sides of the board. The orange tulips and dark green stems are now exposed and ready for removal. Pull an orange block with 24 and drop it into your empty waiting slots. Orange ants will rush up the left side of the board to devour the lower tulip petals. You will also need to send out black ants to clear the dark outlines around the flowers and the lower hedgehog body. Pull a black block to start removing these barrier pieces. The black outline tiles often block access to the inner colors of the picture so removing them early is a great strategy. This opens a massive central corridor for your other ants to travel upward toward the main body of the hedgehog.

Step 3: Alternate between clearing the light blue sky and the inner pink face of the hedgehog.

The light blue sky forms a massive solid border around the top and sides of the hedgehog. Since the side paths are now clear you can pull a light blue block to send ants up the edges. The light blue blocks have large numbers like 30 and 20 which means they will stay in your waiting slots for a while. Dropping these into the tray will keep a steady stream of blue ants busy clearing the sky. At the same time the pink face of the hedgehog is now fully exposed in the center of the board. Pull a pink block with 19 to let the ants eat away the face. You must keep balancing the outer sky blocks with the inner picture blocks. If you only focus on the center you risk jamming your waiting slots with sky colors later when you run out of other moves. Alternating between the light blue sky and the pink face keeps multiple paths active at all times.

Step 4: Manage connected blocks carefully as you clear the tan body and dark brown outline tiles.

You will notice connected blocks appearing in your tray around this time. Pulling a linked pair takes up two of your five waiting slots instantly. Only pull a connected pair if you are certain both colors have an open path on the board. For example you might see a light blue block connected to a dark brown block. Wait to pull this pair until both the sky and the brown spikes are exposed. The picture is now broken up into floating sections of sky and isolated bits of the hedgehog. Pull a tan block with 24 to clear the completely bare sections of the body and paws. Always verify that a colored tile is physically reachable by an open path before you pull the matching block into your slots.

Step 5: Send ants to the upper brown spikes and finish removing the large sections of sky.

The top half of the hedgehog consists almost entirely of thick dark brown spikes. The ants now have clear access to the bottom edges of these spikes. Pull a dark brown block with 27 to send a large swarm to the top center of the board. You will also need to pull a light blue block with 16 to finish off the isolated patches of sky in the upper right corner. Sending ants to opposite corners of the board is a great way to maximize your clear rate because the different colored ants will not bump into each other. Watch the numbers on your blocks drop as the ants eat the tiles and return to the nest. Once a block hits zero it vanishes from the tray and frees up a valuable waiting slot for your next necessary move.

Step 6: Clear the final scattered red and yellow flower pieces to empty the board completely.

You are now down to the last few scattered tiles on the board. The remaining pieces are mostly red and dark red from the upper tulip petals alongside a few dark brown blocks from the very top spikes. Pull a red block with 19 and a dark red connected block with 9 to clear the remaining flowers on the left side. Pull a yellow block with 15 to clear the scattered yellow pixels near the center of the screen. The board is very open right now so the ants will have zero trouble reaching their targets quickly. Just be sure you do not pull more blocks than you have available slots. Wait for the red ants to finish their job before you pull the final brown block. The last few ants will clear the top pixels and the board will register as complete.

Final Thought

Level 287 requires patience and a careful eye for opening up the board from the bottom upward. Managing your waiting slots is the entire trick to keeping the ants moving smoothly. If any part of this written guide is hard to visualize you can always watch the video above this article to see exactly how the moves play out in motion.