Color guessing game

How to play

1. Choose a level. Easy uses words everybody knows, Medium the color names people search for most, Hard the names of artists' pigments and old dyes.
2. Read the name and picture the color. Pick the hue on the rainbow strip, then the shade in the square: left to right for more color, top to bottom for darker.
3. Press Check my color. Your color and the real one appear side by side with your accuracy. Every answer links to the color's page if you want to learn more about it.

The square and the strip work with the keyboard too: arrow keys to move, Shift for bigger steps, Enter to check and to go to the next color.

How the score works

Each round is worth up to 100 points: your accuracy. Accuracy measures how similar your color looks to the reference, using the OKLab color space, the same measure the color name finder uses. Identical colors score 100; colors that look clearly different, an OKLab distance of 0.25 or more, score 0. A full game is worth 1,000 points, the daily challenge 500.

The reference for every name is the one in our color library. Many names have more than one common value: mauve, for example, means a pale purple in some lists and a dusky pink in others. The color pages show every definition side by side, so after a surprising round it is worth a look.

Daily challenge

Every day there is a new set of five medium and hard colors, the same for every player. Share your row of squares with friends and compare. Your result for the day is kept on your device; nothing is sent to us.

Is it just blue, or is it cerulean?

It's blue. Actually, it's cerulean.

Some people name seven colors, others seven hundred. Most of the names in this game have a story: burgundy comes from wine, periwinkle from a flower, mauve became famous through the first synthetic dye. Playing a few rounds is the quickest way to learn them.