How to play
Watch the flashing colours, then tap them in the same order.
About Simon Colors
Simon Colors is a memory game built from four coloured panels and a sequence that gets one step longer every round. The game shows you a pattern of flashes. You repeat it. Then it adds one more and you repeat the lot again. It starts out trivial and ends, a few minutes later, with you muttering colours under your breath.
How to play
The screen is split into four blocks: red at the top left, green at the top right, blue at the bottom left and yellow at the bottom right. At the start of each round the game lights up the panels one after another while the status line says "watch". When it changes to "your turn", tap the panels in the same order.
Round one is a single flash. Get it right and round two plays that same flash followed by a new one. Round three adds a third, and so it goes. The sequence always begins the same way and only ever grows at the end, so you are building on what you already know.
Tap a wrong panel and the game stops. The round number at the top is your result. Tap again to start over with a brand new sequence.
You cannot tap while the pattern is being shown, so there is no way to jump in early by accident.
How far can people get?
Short-term memory holds about seven items for most people, give or take a couple. That is why rounds one to five feel easy and things get shaky somewhere around seven or eight. Reaching round ten is a good result. Getting into the mid-teens takes a method.
Methods that work
Say it out loud. "Red, blue, blue, yellow" is easier to hold on to than a series of flashes, because you are using your ears as well as your eyes. Some people prefer numbers for the four corners, or the words top and bottom, left and right. Use whatever comes naturally, but stick to one system.
Break the sequence into chunks. Twelve separate colours is a lot. Four groups of three is manageable, in the same way that a phone number is easier in pieces. Since the pattern grows by one each round, you get to rehearse the early chunks many times, and they become solid.
Use your hands. Tapping the pattern builds a kind of finger memory, like a tune on a piano. If you always use the same finger for the same panel, the movement itself starts to remind you what comes next.
Watch every replay from the beginning, even when you are sure you know it. It is free practice, and it sets the rhythm for your own turn.
Finally, do not rush your answer. There is no time limit once it is your turn. Most mistakes come from tapping fast on the part you know well and carrying that speed into the part you do not.
Who it is for
Simon Colors is a good workout for concentration at any age. Children enjoy beating their parents at it, which happens more often than parents like. It is also a calm game with no sudden shocks, so it suits a quiet moment.
It runs in your browser on phones, tablets and computers, free of charge and with nothing to download.