Colony Flow Level 401 Walkthrough Solution & Guides | How to solve Colony Flow 401

Welcome to Colony Flow Level 401. This puzzle features a large pixel art character and introduces a locked tray column that forces you to manage your moves perfectly. You must feed your colony by matching colored blocks to the picture while digging through the board to find hidden keys. I play every level of this game to find the exact sequence that keeps the board open. You will need to carefully guide your ants from the bottom of the screen all the way to the top without jamming your available space.

Colony Flow Level 401 Overview

What You Are Working With

The main puzzle board displays a pixel art person with thick black hair and peach colored skin. The character wears a shirt made of white and light blue squares along with solid white pants. Dark black outlines shape the shoes and the legs at the very bottom of the picture. Two golden keys rest directly on the chest area of the shirt. Your tray at the bottom of the screen contains black, white, light blue, and peach blocks. A bright yellow padlock completely blocks the right side column of your tray. You cannot access the blocks under that padlock until you collect both keys from the board.

What It Takes to Clear Level 401 Board

You win this level by clearing every single colored square from the picture before you run out of space. You have five waiting slots available for your blocks. If you pull five blocks and the ants cannot reach their matching colors, the slots will jam and you lose the level immediately. You must clear the bottom shoes first to open a path to the pants. Then you must eat through the pants to reach the shirt. You will collect the keys to break the padlock and unlock the black blocks you need for the hair. Every move must keep at least one path open so the ants can travel freely and your waiting slots never fill up completely.

Colony Flow Level 401 Step by Step Solution

Step 1: Clear the dark shoes to open the bottom path.

You need to begin at the very bottom of the puzzle board. The pixel art character stands on black shoes with dark outlines traveling up the sides of the legs. These black tiles block your ants from reaching the white pants. Pull the first black block from your tray into one of your five waiting slots. A large group of black ants will emerge from the nest hole and march directly to the shoes. You will see the number on your black block drop from 40 down to 12 as the ants leave the nest. Let the black ants completely consume the shoes and the lower outlines. Keep your remaining four waiting slots completely empty. This creates a wide open entry point for the rest of your colony.

Step 2: Clear the white pants to reveal the lower shirt.

With the shoes gone, the white pants are totally exposed to your nest hole. Pull a white block from the tray into your waiting slots. A swarm of white ants will rush up the cleared empty space and target the solid white tiles. You will watch the number on the white block drop to 27 as the ants eat their way higher up the board. The white ants will clear the bulk of the pants and expose the bottom edge of the shirt. This upward progression is absolutely required. You cannot reach the hidden keys until this middle section is open. Do not pull any other colors right now. Let the white block drain its numbers to keep your waiting slots from jamming.

Step 3: Target the light blue sections of the shirt.

The character wears a shirt built from a mix of white and light blue tiles. The pants are now out of the way so you can start clearing the shirt. Pull a light blue block into your open waiting slots. The light blue ants will march straight up the center of the board and attack the colored details on the shirt. The number on your light blue block will quickly count down to 21. You will notice the ants routing themselves perfectly around the remaining solid white sections to reach their targets. The light blue tiles sit very close to the embedded keys. Clearing them removes a major barrier on the board.

Step 4: Dig into the chest to collect the first hidden key.

You can clearly see two golden keys sitting on the chest of the pixel art shirt. You must collect both of them to unlock the right column of your tray. Pull a large peach block to clear the hands and parts of the lower face that touch the top of the shirt. The peach block number will drop from 51 down to 41. Then pull another white block to clear the remaining white tiles on the lower half of the shirt. The ants will eat their way directly into the center of the chest. When they clear the tile holding the first key, the key flies down to the padlock in your tray. You still need one more key to open the column completely.

Step 5: Grab the second key and break the padlocked tray column.

The second key rests slightly higher on the chest surrounded by more white and light blue tiles. Pull another light blue block into your waiting slots. The number will drop down to 19 and then to 4 as the ants consume the upper shirt tiles. When the ants eat the exact tile holding the second key, it drops straight down to the tray. The yellow padlock instantly breaks and vanishes from the screen. You now have full access to the blocks in the right column. This unlocks a massive reserve of fresh black blocks. You will absolutely need these black blocks to clear the giant head of hair later in the puzzle.

Step 6: Clear the peach face to reach the top section.

Now you must focus on the face. The face consists entirely of peach tiles and blocks the path to the inner hair. Your waiting slots might currently hold a white block at 10 and a black block at 5. Pull a new peach block from your tray. The peach ants will travel all the way up through the empty body space and begin eating the face from the chin upwards. The face contains a lot of tiles so you will watch the peach block drop rapidly down to 20. Let the ants do their work before pulling anything else. The waiting slots must remain flexible. Clearing the face exposes the inner edge of the thick black hair.

Step 7: Deploy black blocks to tackle the massive head of hair.

The hair is the largest single color section on the entire board. Now that the face is completely gone, you have a huge open path straight into the center of the hair. Pull two large black blocks from your newly unlocked tray column. Black ants will flood the board and split into different groups. Some will march straight up the middle and eat the hair from the inside out. Others will travel up the extreme left and right edges of the screen to eat the outside borders. You will see the numbers on your black blocks drain rapidly to 38 and then down to 7. Because the hair is so huge, you must pull additional black blocks as the first ones run empty. Always keep one waiting slot open. If you pull five black blocks at the same time and the ants get stuck, you will dead end the board and lose.

Step 8: Sweep the outside edges and the final top borders.

The black ants will naturally wrap around the entire top half of the screen. You will see long continuous lines of ants traveling up the far left and right walls. They are hunting down the final black tiles on the very top of the head. Keep pulling black blocks from the tray to fuel this swarm. The numbers on your current black blocks will drop to 30 and 18. The ants will systematically chew away the remaining black pixels until the entire top border disappears. You might also spot a few stray tiles lower down on the board that got left behind during the earlier steps.

Step 9: Clean up the remaining stray tiles to finish the board.

Look closely at the entire puzzle area. You will likely see a handful of isolated tiles scattered near the middle where the shirt used to be. You need to pull the exact colors from your tray to match these remaining floaters. Pull a final light blue block and watch the number drop to 24 as the ants grab the stray blue pieces. Pull a white block to catch any remaining white pixels. Because you kept your waiting slots perfectly organized throughout the level, you have plenty of room to pull these final cleanup colors. The ants will eat the last few pixels and march off the screen. You clear the entire board and win the level.

Final Thought

Managing your space is the true test of this puzzle. You must resist the urge to pull blocks before their corresponding paths open up. Keeping an eye on the padlock and working strictly from the bottom to the top guarantees your waiting slots remain clear. If you find any specific sequence difficult to visualize through the text alone, I highly recommend watching the video above this article to see the exact timing of every block pull.