About this color guessing game
Color / Play is a free color guessing game you play in a browser. A run shows you five colors one after another, hides each one, and asks you to find it again on the hue wheel. There is nothing to install and no account to make: open the page, press Let’s play, and the first color appears. When the fifth round ends you get a total out of 500, a round-by-round review of every original next to your guess, and an optional link for challenging a friend.
How to play
Every round has two halves. First you watch: a color fills the disk for a few seconds and you try to hold it in mind. Then it disappears, the wheel lights up, and you drag the handle around the ring to rebuild the color you just saw. Lock it in and the disk splits to show the original beside your choice, with the points for the round and a hint about what was different.
Easy shows each color for four seconds and asks for hue only. Classic is stricter: the viewing time shrinks from three seconds down to one as the rounds pass, and a shade field opens inside the wheel — move left or right to change saturation, up or down to change lightness. Either way there is no timer while you answer; the only clock is your memory.
How the score works
Rounds are scored by perceptual distance, not raw RGB numbers. Your color and the original are converted into OKLab, a color space built to approximate how human vision judges differences, and the distance between the two becomes the round score: 100 × exp(−4.5 × distance), rounded to a whole number. An exact match earns 100 points. Larger perceptual differences lower the score; hue, saturation and lightness all contribute, so an opposite hue does not imply a near-zero score. Five rounds make a maximum of 500.
The memory game keeps a different kind of score: the longest color sequence you complete in one run, from a single color up to thirty-two.
These are game scores for fun. They are not a measurement of your eyesight.
Daily challenge and practice
The guessing and matching games both offer a daily challenge: the same five colors for everyone playing the same game and difficulty on the same UTC date. Your first attempt is recorded the moment you begin it on this device. Leave a daily run part-way and every later attempt that day is labeled practice. A completed first score is never replaced by a better practice run, and older daily links always open as practice. Best scores are kept per game and difficulty, in this browser only, and Clear best removes the one on screen.
Controls
Everything works with a pointer: drag around the wheel, drag inside the shade field, tap the memory pads. If you prefer keys, focus the wheel and use the arrow keys — hold Shift for bigger steps — or open Keyboard controls for labeled hue, saturation and lightness sliders. In the memory game the number keys 1–4 press the pads. Sound is optional and starts off, and switching tabs during a color preview or a sequence pauses the game; resuming replays that observation from the start.
Sharing and common questions
When you finish a run you can challenge a friend with the same five colors. The shared message shows your total, your difficulty and a row of accuracy symbols for how close each round was — but never the colors themselves, so nothing is spoiled. The link carries the game, the difficulty and the puzzle seed, so whoever opens it plays exactly the same set.
Is it free? Yes — no ads, no accounts, no payments.
Where do my scores live? In this browser. There is no server-side scoreboard, and you can clear your best at any time.
Can friends play my colors? Yes — finish a run and use Challenge a friend or Copy challenge. Nothing is ever posted automatically.
Ready for something different? The color matching game keeps the target in plain sight, and the color memory game asks you to repeat growing sequences. Scoring and controls are described in more detail on the about and scoring page.