Hue ShufflePlay now

Color Memory

Hold a shade after it disappears, then pick it back out.

Study this color, then hide it.

How this game actually plays

What you are looking for

Color Memory shows one target shade, then hides it. You pick that shade back out of six options. The six always include the true target and five near-misses in the same neighborhood, so the job is recognition after a blank, not naming. Use Hide color and choose when you have had a look; the target will not stay on screen while you compare. There are five rounds. Each round is a new target. After you pick, the expected swatch is marked so you can see whether you held the hue, the lightness, or neither.

How the difficulty moves

Early rounds keep the decoys a little farther away. Later rounds pull those decoys closer, so two options can look interchangeable unless you remembered a specific axis — a bit more green, a bit less light. The layout does not change: still six choices, still one hidden target. What changes is how much slack the generator leaves between right and almost right. Replay shuffles a new set. There is no growing grid and no timer; the pressure is only the blank between study and choice.

What a score is

The score is correct picks out of five on this display. It measures whether you can reselect a just-seen color among cousins, not whether you can name it or mix it. A 3/5 can mean the decoys sat inside the difference your screen actually shows. Compare only with another run on the same device. The result is not a memory-test IQ and not a vision diagnosis.

Common mistakes

The usual miss is studying the target as a story — teal, nice, a bit gray — then picking the option that matches the story instead of the specific mixture. Another is staring at the six while reconstructing from the wrong end, such as matching lightness and ignoring hue. Hide only when you have a lock on one axis you can test. If two options still look identical after the hide, that is often the screen, not a failed memory. Five rounds is short on purpose so you can replay without turning it into an exam. Near-misses that share lightness but not hue catch people who only remembered how bright the patch was.

On this sitting

Hide the target after a counted look — two seconds is enough — instead of waiting until the afterimage fades on its own. The six-choice layout is fixed so later rounds get harder only because cousins move in, not because the UI changed. Replay on the same screen if you want to know whether you actually held the shade. A sitting of five is short on purpose; use it, then replay, rather than turning one round into an exam.

What changes as you play?

Fivestudy-then-hide rounds
Sixchoices each time
Tighternear-misses by round

The target is gone when you choose, so you are matching a memory, not a sample still on screen.

Later rounds keep the same six-choice layout but pull the distractors closer in color.

Make a small color journey.

These three routes are only suggested sequences. You can open any of the sixteen games on its own, leave a route halfway, or skip the pairing entirely. Each game keeps its own score on this screen and this sitting. Nothing here adds those scores into a combined rank, a skill grade, or a color-vision result. Play the first game to notice one kind of judgment, then the second to see how that judgment changes when the task is slightly different.

notice

Notice more.

Start at a color-name boundary, then hunt for a single off tile.

Blue or Green? asks you to name a turquoise as one familiar word or the other. Spot the Different then asks you to find a single off tile among many similar ones. Start with the naming game so you feel how a hue can sit on a boundary; then hunt for a tile that is only a little off. The first game is about the word you choose. The second is about a visual difference with no name attached.

Blue or Green?Spot the Different
hold

Hold the shade.

Remember one color, then rebuild another with the previews hidden.

Color Memory shows a target, hides it, then offers six close options. Blind Sliders hides the mix as well, so you rebuild from hue, saturation and lightness numbers only. Do memory first: you still see the choices. Then try blind mixing, where even your own swatch is gone until you reveal it. One task is recognition among near-misses. The other is reconstruction with no preview. Completing both shows whether you hold a shade better when you can compare, or when you mix it unseen.

Color MemoryBlind Sliders
work

Work with color.

Put hues in order, then mix a match with three sliders.

Hue Sorting keeps two end tiles fixed and asks you to swap the middle until the gradient is smooth. Color Matching keeps the target visible and lets you drag three sliders until the mix agrees. Sort first so you feel the slope between two anchors; then mix a single target by hand. Ordering is about relative steps. Matching is about landing on one destination. After the pair you can see whether you are steadier at arranging hues or at steering HSL onto a sample that stays on screen.

Hue SortingColor Matching

Before you compare scores

A score on Hue Shuffle is a count of what happened in this browser, on this display, in this room. Brightness, color temperature, night mode, True Tone, and the kind of panel you are looking at all change how close two colors appear. The same round on a phone and a laptop is not the same stimulus.

Room light and viewing angle matter as much as the hardware. A window behind you, a warm lamp, or glare on glossy glass can hide a difference that was obvious a minute earlier. Sit still relative to the screen if you want two runs to be comparable at all.

Fatigue and attention move the result even when the device does not. A long session, a second monitor, or playing while distracted will scatter your answers. Repeating the same game on one device, with similar light, is the only comparison that has much meaning here.

Do not treat another person's score, or a score from a different phone, as a measurement of your vision. These games are for noticing how you judge color in the moment. They are not a medical exam, not a color-blindness test, and not a calibrated lab result. If you only have a minute, remember three things: same device, similar light, no medical story. Everything else on this page expands those three.

Which challenge should you try next?

Compare how this game asks you to look, then open a neighbor if you want a different kind of judgment.

GameWhat you doWhat makes it differentMain focus
Color MemoryRecall a hidden shadeThe target is gone before you pick from six near-misses.Short-term color memory
Memory StackRebuild an ordered rowYou rebuild a hidden row that grows from two colors to five.Sequence memory
Color SequenceRepeat a flashing sequencePads flash in order and a miss ends the run.Temporal color memory
Blind SlidersMatch from memory with no previewPreviews hide, so you mix from HSL numbers only.Blind color reconstruction
Spot the DifferentFind one subtly different tileThe odd tile hides in a growing grid with a shrinking gap.Small color differences
Color MemoryShort-term color memory

Recall a hidden shade

The target is gone before you pick from six near-misses.

Memory StackSequence memory

Rebuild an ordered row

You rebuild a hidden row that grows from two colors to five.

Color SequenceTemporal color memory

Repeat a flashing sequence

Pads flash in order and a miss ends the run.

Blind SlidersBlind color reconstruction

Match from memory with no preview

Previews hide, so you mix from HSL numbers only.

Spot the DifferentSmall color differences

Find one subtly different tile

The odd tile hides in a growing grid with a shrinking gap.

Explore all games

Keep looking closer.

View all
Complementary ColorPick the swatch that sits opposite the target on the color wheel.Color MatchingAdjust hue, saturation and lightness to recreate a target.Blue or Gray?Judge when a muted cool color starts counting as blue.