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Same or changed?

Symbols flash at places on a board, a blank, then they return: same, or has one changed? More symbols, shorter looks, subtler changes.

  • Memory
  • Timed
  • Endless levels

How it plays

A few symbols appear at places on a board for a moment. The board goes blank, then the symbols come back. Say whether the display is the same as before or whether something changed. Half the time it has.

Changes start with one symbol becoming a different one. Then a filled shape turns hollow (▲ to △), and finally two symbols trade places — every symbol is still there, so only memory of what was where catches it.

Levels add a symbol (the board grows to fit), shorten the look and unlock the subtler changes. How many symbols you can hold before you start guessing is what the ladder finds.

Keys

Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.

What it trains

This practises holding a display in mind for a second and comparing it. It improves change detection of this kind; it is not, on the evidence, a route to a bigger memory in general.

Learn

How to get better at same or changed?: the method, the techniques, what each new level asks of you, and the traps the wrong answers are made of.

Your approach to each question

  1. When the board appears, take in the places first: the filled cells make a shape. That shape never changes — every change happens at a place that already held a symbol — so it is the frame you hang everything else on.
  2. Then name what sits at each place, in reading order, top row first, with its fill: “full star, empty square, full triangle”. Filled or hollow is part of the name, not a detail.
  3. Through the blank, hold the names and the shape. Words and a shape survive the blank; a mental snapshot of the board fades long before the second is up.
  4. When the board returns, check it back in the same reading order, place by place. One mismatch is enough to answer Changed; answer Same only when every place agrees.

Techniques and tricks

  • Name in reading order

    Read the board like a page, left to right and top to bottom, and give each symbol a short spoken name with its fill. A fixed order means the check afterwards runs the same way, so nothing is skipped.

  • Count the filled ones

    Count how many symbols are filled. A fill change moves that count by exactly one, which catches the change a glance at shapes misses.

    e.g. ● □ ▲ ☆ has two filled. Back as ● □ △ ☆ it has one: Changed.

  • Take an inventory

    Keep a tally of the kinds on the board: “two stars, a square, a diamond”. A “new symbol” change almost always brings in a symbol that was nowhere on the board, so any shape you did not see before means Changed.

  • Bind neighbours as pairs

    Swaps leave the inventory and the filled count untouched, so hold who sits next to whom: “star left of square, triangle below”. A swap breaks a pairing even when every count still agrees.

    e.g. Top row ★ ■, the ▲ below the ★. Back with the ▲ on the top row and the ★ below it: same symbols, same places filled — Changed.

  • Chunk the board by rows

    Past about six symbols, one list is too long. Hold each row, or each half of the board, as its own short phrase, and check the board back one chunk at a time.

As the levels climb

  • Three things rise in turn: one more symbol, a shorter look, then a subtler kind of change. Once all three kinds are in, only the symbols and the look keep climbing, and the symbols never stop.
  • The board grows to keep about half its cells filled: 3×3 up to 4 symbols, 4×4 from 5, 5×5 from 9, 6×6 from 13. On a bigger board, switch from naming every symbol to rows, counts and pairs.
  • Fill changes arrive three levels up from the first, swaps three levels after that. From then on a third of the changes are swaps, so finish every check with the pairs, not just the counts.
  • The look falls from 1,500 ms to 520 ms, plus 150 ms for each symbol on the board. When it is too short to name everything, name only the filled count and the inventory, then spend what is left on pairs.

Traps to avoid

  • The fill blind spot: ▲ back as △ reads as “the triangle is still there”. Shape and fill are one name — say both, every time.
  • The silent swap: the same symbols, the same places filled, the same counts. If every count agrees, still run the pairs before you answer Same.
  • A false “Changed” from a symbol you never named: on the second look it seems new only because you skipped it the first time. Name every place on the first look, so “new” means something.
  • Leaning one way when unsure: about half the displays change, so a habit of saying Same, or Changed, when in doubt gains nothing. Find the one place you are unsure of and decide on that.

How to practise

  • Use “Changes to include” to drill the kind that beats you. If swaps do, play swaps alone for a session, then mix the others back in.
  • After a miss, read the “Before:” line — it lists every symbol with its place, like ● B2. Find the one you did not hold and ask which trick would have caught it.
  • “Time pressure” changes only how long you have to answer, not how long the board is shown. Keep it on “Normal”: the decision should come in a second or two once the board returns.
  • Raise “Symbols at level 0” once the opening levels are automatic, so a session starts where you begin to stretch.

Levels

Each question has a clock that comes from the work it asks for. There is no last level: at least one dial turns without end. Your level is judged on your last ten answers, every ten: 90% moves you up, below 80% moves you down, which holds most people near four in five right.

All of it is in the settings beside Start — how many answers a judgement looks at and how often it recalibrates, the thresholds, the time, which questions, how many options, and whether you see each verdict at once or review them together at the judgement. You can also jump to any level.

More memory

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