Color IQ

How to play

Every round shows a grid of tiles in one color, except for a single tile in a slightly different shade. Tap the odd one out to advance. The grid grows from 2 by 2 up to 6 by 6 while the color gap shrinks with every level. You have 3 lives, and a wrong tap costs one but briefly highlights the tile you missed.

Tips

• Soften your gaze and take in the whole grid at once. The odd tile often pops in peripheral vision before you can point at it.
• The difference can be in hue, brightness, or intensity, so do not fixate on one kind of change.
• Turn up your screen brightness and avoid glare. Past level 20 the shades are only a couple of steps apart.
• When you lose a life, study the highlighted tile. It tunes your eye to the differences that trip you up.

What colour discrimination actually is

Telling two very similar shades apart is a different skill from naming colours or having no colour deficiency. It depends on how finely your visual system divides the spectrum, and it varies a lot between people with perfectly normal colour vision. It also varies within a person: it drops when you are tired, it is worse in the blue region for almost everyone, and it can improve with practice.

This test starts with a 2 by 2 grid and one tile that is noticeably off, then grows the grid to 6 by 6 while shrinking the difference each level. The level you reach is roughly a measure of the smallest shade difference you can reliably see.

Seeing the odd tile

• Unfocus slightly and look at the grid as a whole. An odd tile often stands out in peripheral vision when it vanishes under direct inspection.
• Turn your screen brightness up. Dim screens compress the differences the test depends on.
• Do not stare. Colour perception adapts within seconds, and a tile that was faintly different can seem to match if you look too long.
• Compare rows, not tiles. Sweep your eyes along a row and the odd one interrupts the rhythm.
• A wrong tap shows you the tile you missed. Look at how different it actually was; it recalibrates you for the next level.

Common questions

Is this a colour blindness test?

No. It measures how finely you can tell similar shades apart, which varies widely among people with normal colour vision. It is not a medical screening.

How does the difficulty increase?

The grid grows from 2 by 2 up to 6 by 6, and the shade difference between the odd tile and the rest gets smaller every level.

Does screen quality affect my score?

Yes. Brightness, colour calibration and even the angle of a laptop screen change how visible small differences are, so compare scores on the same device.