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Block sequence

Cells light up one after another; tap them back in the same order — or in reverse. One more block each level, with no ceiling.

  • Memory
  • Timed
  • Endless levels

How it plays

Watch the cells light in turn, then tap the same cells in the same order. Each tap is numbered where it lands; the answer is in with the last tap.

Levels add a block or shorten the flash; the board grows when the sequence would crowd it. Reverse order is in the settings, and is harder.

Keys

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

What it trains

This practises holding a sequence of places in mind. It improves this kind of span; it is not a claim about memory at large.

Learn

How to get better at block sequence: 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. Fix the first block to the board as it lights: which column, which row. Everything after it is placed from there.
  2. As each block lights, join it to the one before with a line in your mind, so the sequence becomes one drawn path rather than separate flashes.
  3. When the last block goes out, replay the path once, then tap it at an even pace. Each tap is numbered where it lands, so you can see how far you are.
  4. In reverse, replay the path forwards once to be sure of it, then walk it from the end. Only the run of right taps from the first counts, so be surest of your first taps.

Techniques and tricks

  • Draw the path

    Remember the shape the path makes — a zig-zag, an L, a triangle, a hook back to the middle. A shape is one thing to hold; its corners give you the blocks.

  • Keypad numbers on 3×3

    On the 3×3 board, give the cells the numbers of a phone keypad: 1 2 3 on top, 4 5 6 in the middle, 7 8 9 at the bottom. The path becomes a short string of digits you can say.

    e.g. Top-left, centre, bottom-right, top-right is 1 5 9 3.

  • Name cells by column and row

    From 4×4 up, name cells as the game does: a column letter from A on the left, a row number from 1 at the top. “B2, D1, A4” is slower to say than a shape but holds when the path crosses itself.

  • Chunk in threes or fours

    Split a long path into short runs and give each run its own shape: “a triangle, then a line down the side”. Two or three shapes hold where nine separate blocks will not.

  • Reverse by chunks

    For reverse order, reverse the order of the chunks, then each chunk inside itself. You never have to reverse the whole path at once.

    e.g. Chunks A B C then D E F, tapped back: F E D, then C B A.

As the levels climb

  • Levels alternate between one more block and a shorter flash: each block lights for 900 ms at first, then 750, 620, 520 and finally 450 ms. After that, only blocks are added, one a level, without end.
  • The board grows when the path would cover more than 60% of it: 3×3 up to 5 blocks, 4×4 from 6, 5×5 from 10, 6×6 from 16. When it grows, move from keypad digits to column-and-row names.
  • A short flash leaves no time to name each block as it lights. Let your eyes jump to each block as it comes on and name the chunk afterwards, during the next two or three flashes.
  • Past seven or so blocks one shape will not hold the whole path. Chunk it as it arrives, not after: close a chunk every three or four blocks.

Traps to avoid

  • A block that seems to light twice: it never does — no block lights twice in one sequence. If your path returns to a block, you have merged two neighbouring blocks into one.
  • Places right, order wrong: you know which blocks lit but swap two of them. A swap near the start costs nearly the whole sequence, since only the taps before your first mistake count.
  • Tapping forwards out of habit in reverse mode. Read the word shown with the board — “Backwards” or “Same order” — before your first tap.
  • The neighbour slip on a bigger board: the right shape, one cell over. Fix one corner of each chunk to an edge of the board as it lights.

How to practise

  • Once same order feels easy, set “Tap them back” to “In reverse”. It makes you work on the path, not just keep it.
  • After a miss, read the “They lit:” line — A1 → C2 → B3 and so on — and trace it with your eyes to see where your path bent away.
  • Set “Blocks at level 0” near where you start to fail, so a session spends its time on the lengths that stretch you.

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.

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