About Memory Grid
Memory Grid flashes a pattern of squares on a grid and asks you to tap them all back. Each level lights one more square, and the grid itself grows from 3 x 3 up to 6 x 6. You have three lives to see how far you can get.
How to play
- At the start of each level some squares light up briefly. The display lasts 0.9 seconds plus 0.12 seconds for each lit square.
- After the squares go dark, tap every square that was lit. The order does not matter, and correct squares stay lit as you find them.
- Level 1 lights 3 squares, and each level adds one more. The grid is 3 x 3 for levels 1 to 3, 4 x 4 for levels 4 to 6, 5 x 5 for levels 7 to 9, and 6 x 6 from level 10 onward.
- A wrong tap turns that square red. Two wrong taps are forgiven, but the third wrong tap on the same board costs a life and replays the level with a new pattern.
- Find every lit square to move on to the next level. Your wrong-tap count resets with each new board.
- You start with three lives. When the last one is lost the game ends, and your saved score is the number of levels you completed.
Controls
- Mouse: click squares to select them.
- Touch: tap squares. Taps during the memorise phase are ignored.
- There are no keyboard controls.
Tips and strategy
- Look at the shape the squares make rather than each square on its own. A diagonal line, an L or a cluster is one thing to remember instead of several.
- Split bigger patterns by area, such as the top row and the bottom-left corner, and recall them one area at a time.
- Tap the squares you are surest of first. Since order does not matter, locking in the easy ones reduces how much you have to hold.
- Use your two free mistakes wisely. If you are torn between two squares near the end, a guess is cheaper than you might think.
- Expect a jump in difficulty when the grid grows at levels 4, 7 and 10. The squares get smaller and the patterns are spread over more space.
Background
Remembering where things are relies on visuospatial working memory, which psychologists often treat as separate from memory for words and numbers. A classic test of it is the Corsi block-tapping task, devised by Philip Corsi in the early 1970s, in which a person repeats a sequence of taps on a set of blocks. Memory Grid is closer to a pattern-recall task than to Corsi, because all the squares appear at once and can be tapped in any order, but it draws on the same ability to hold a spatial layout in mind for a few seconds.
Questions
- Does a single wrong tap cost a life?
- No. You can make two wrong taps on a board without penalty. The third wrong tap on the same board costs a life and restarts that level with a new pattern.
- Do I have to tap the squares in the order they appeared?
- No. All the lit squares appear at the same time, and you can tap them in any order.
- How big does the grid get?
- It stops growing at 6 x 6 from level 10. After that, each level still adds one more lit square.