Never Sort By Color Review Summary

It offers a large amount of fun content, enjoyable model building and play, and novel mechanics, but poor performance, lag, and bricks clipping through the floor hold it back.

Large amount of content: With 100,000 pieces and many build options, the game offers plenty of content and hours of gameplay.

Fun and enjoyable overall: Reviewers frequently describe the game as fun, enjoyable, and a good time.

Building and playing with models: The ability to build models from sorted pieces and then interact with them (e.g., pilot, explore) adds significant fun and depth.

Novel mechanics and skills: Unique mechanics like the sieve tray and balanced skills add novelty and depth compared to other organizing games.

Best sorting game ever: Multiple reviewers consider this the greatest or ultimate sorting game they have played, praising it as the peak of the genre.

Poor performance and lag: The game suffers from lag, stuttering, and poor optimization, particularly at the start. Some players report low FPS and high GPU usage, requiring stronger hardware.

Bricks clip through floor: Bricks frequently clip through the floor, disappear into walls, or get stuck behind furniture, often requiring the magnet glove or Restore Bricks to recover them. This can cause softlocks and lost progress.

Stressful, not relaxing: Players find the game stressful and overwhelming instead of relaxing, especially in the first few hours. This contradicts the game's stated purpose as a relaxing organization game.

Achievement requires sending email: An achievement is locked behind sending feedback via email, requiring players to provide an email address. Reviewers find this sketchy and worry about spam or flooding the developer's inbox.

Grindy progression and slow start: Progression feels like a grind, with slow part collection, long cooldowns, and expensive upgrades. The early, mid, and late game all require repetitive actions with little payoff.

Sorting game core: Multiple clusters describe the game as primarily a sorting game where players organize items into boxes, drawers, and bins. The sorting involves small pieces and is often compared to OCD cleaning.

Cleaning messes: The game involves cleaning up messes by sorting and organizing scattered items. This is often described as an OCD cleaning-style experience.

Building after sorting: After sorting, players can build models and creations. Building includes assembling according to instructions and creating original designs.

Brick sorting mechanic: Players sort brick pieces into containers. The game is distinguished from LEGO building, focusing on organizing bricks into bins, buckets, and drawers.

Large piece count: The game features a massive number of pieces to sort, often cited as 100,000 or exactly 107,000 parts. This creates a challenging sorting experience.

Runs well on some systems: Positive reports include smooth performance on gaming laptops and good optimization on various hardware. Some achieve high FPS on max settings.

Performance issues reported: Some players experience slow performance, poor optimization, and stuttering. These issues affect gameplay smoothness.

Settings adjustments help performance: Users report that restarting the game or reducing FPS settings improves performance. Controller layout changes also fixed lag for some.

Initial lag improves over time: Several users note significant lag at the start of the game that lessens after a while. This suggests initial loading or shader compilation issues.

Occasional stutters and drops: Players mention rare performance drops and stutters when moving objects. These intermittent issues can disrupt gameplay.

Relaxing tidy-up gameplay: Reviewers frequently describe the game as a calming and relaxing tidy-up experience, ideal for winding down. Some note it's not for those seeking pure relaxation due to its repetitive nature.

Strong appeal to LEGO fans: Multiple reviewers recommend the game specifically to LEGO enthusiasts, citing the brick-sorting theme and solid parts. It is seen as a natural fit for that audience.

General recommendations and praise: Many clusters contain broad recommendations, such as '100% buy this game' and 'highly recommended to everyone,' reflecting overall satisfaction. These are simple endorsements without detailed justification.

Good for time-wasting sessions: Several reviewers recommend it for occupying time, such as while watching a series or when you have dozens of hours to spare. It's seen as a low-cost way to fill idle time.

Not universally appealing: Some feedback notes that the game is not for everyone, with one reviewer refunding it and another saying it's not for those who play sorting games to relax. This indicates a polarizing aspect.

Session length: 9.0h.

Endgame: 200.0h.

Players who enjoy LEGO and meditative sorting are hooked from the start, but the experience turns downward in the late game as repetitive instruction-following, tedious container management, and broken reward balance set in.

Friction: early lag; high bin prices in early game; missing bulk container transfer controls; early stress and overwhelm; frustrating container physics; broken progression economy.

Unlock drivers: lag improves after a while; investing in skills makes them better than actual sorting; early stress and overwhelm becomes less of an issue after the first few hours.

Cozy Relaxation Sorter: Long, relaxed sorting sessions with little pressure and an emphasis on cozy atmosphere. Motivation: To unwind through satisfying, low-stakes organization and cleaning. Stance: buy.

Completionist Achievement Hunter: Checks achievement lists first and pursues full completion, avoiding or protesting gated achievements. Motivation: To complete all achievements and judge the game by fair, transparent progression. Stance: no buy.

Privacy and AI-Conscious Skeptic: Scrutinizes feedback systems, visual polish, and store signals before deciding whether to play. Motivation: To avoid sketchy data requests and low-effort or AI-generated products. Stance: no buy.

On Windows systems with under 8 GB VRAM, most reviewers recommend the game and report acceptable performance, with some startup lag and occasional slowdowns.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Most reviewers recommend the game and say it is playable, though some report startup lag, occasional slowdowns, and a need for better graphics optimization.

Massive brick sorting scale: Multiple reviews highlight the enormous content volume, with over 100,000 bricks or pieces to find and sort. This scale is repeatedly contrasted with smaller sorting games and is seen as a defining feature.

Strong content-to-price value: Reviewers note the game delivers many hours of play for a low price, offering around 20 hours of content or more for full completion. This makes it stand out as good value.

Demo progress carries over: Progress made in the demo transfers to the full game and relevant achievements are awarded. The game itself was also tested as a demo before release.

Autosave and restore options: The game includes autosave and a Restore Bricks option in the options menu. These quality-of-life features reduce frustration during long sessions.

Years of play via MOC import: The MOC import option could keep the game playable for years, extending its lifespan well beyond the base content.