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Grid memory

Cells light up on a board, then go dark; tap the ones that were lit. More cells, bigger boards, shorter looks.

  • Memory
  • Timed
  • Endless levels

How it plays

A pattern of cells lights up for a moment, then the board goes blank. Tap every cell that was lit — the count is shown, so you know when you are done.

Levels add a cell or shorten the look; the board grows when the pattern would otherwise crowd it. In "one at a time" mode the cells light in turn and you assemble the pattern yourself.

A cell tapped that was not lit cancels one that was, so tapping at random earns nothing.

Keys

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

What it trains

This practises remembering where things were. Gains are in spatial recall of this kind, not a general memory upgrade.

Learn

How to get better at grid memory: 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. Take the pattern as one picture first: what do the lit cells make — a diagonal, an L, a block of four, a pair and a loner?
  2. Then pin each shape to the board: which corner or edge it touches, which row it starts in. A shape without a place gets tapped one cell over.
  3. When the board goes dark, tap the cells you are surest of first, while they are fresh; then place the rest from them.
  4. Count as you go. The question tells you how many were lit, and you cannot submit with fewer, so if you are one short, the missing cell is the one you never placed.

Techniques and tricks

  • Join cells into shapes

    Group lit cells that touch, or nearly touch, into shapes you can name. Five cells as “an L of three and a pair” are two things to hold.

  • Anchor on edges and corners

    A cell on an edge or in a corner is easy to find again on a blank board. Remember each shape by the edge it touches: “the L sits in the bottom-left corner”.

  • Remember the lit, never the gaps

    The lit cells are never more than 40% of the board, so they are always the shorter list. Spend the look on them; the dark cells take care of themselves.

  • Split big boards into quarters

    On 5×5 and up, divide the board into four quarters and hold each quarter’s cells as a small shape of its own. Check the quarters off one by one as you tap.

  • Build it up, one at a time

    In “One cell at a time”, imagine each cell staying lit after it goes out, so the full pattern builds on the board in your mind. The order they light in does not matter — only which cells lit.

As the levels climb

  • Levels alternate between one more lit cell and a shorter look. After a few rounds the look is as short as it gets, and from then on only cells are added, one a level, without end.
  • With “All at once”, the look is a base that falls from 1,600 ms to 750 ms, plus 250 ms for every lit cell. More cells give you more time, but not enough to study each one: lean on shapes.
  • The board grows whenever the pattern would fill more than 40% of it: 3×3 holds 3 cells, 4×4 up to 6, 5×5 up to 10, 6×6 up to 14, then 7×7. Bigger boards spread the cells out, so anchors and quarters matter more.
  • With “One cell at a time”, each cell lights for a little over half the base time — 880 ms at first, 413 ms at the end. Keep adding to the picture; never try to remember the order.

Traps to avoid

  • The shape one cell off: the right L tapped a column to the left. Pin at least one cell of every shape to an edge or corner while it is lit.
  • Every wrong tap costs twice — it misses a lit cell and counts against you. With 5 to find, 4 right and 1 wrong scores 3 out of 5, not 4.
  • The loner dropped: once the rest are grouped into shapes, a single cell on its own is easy to leave out. Count your shapes, loners included, before the board goes dark.
  • Filling the count at random: lit cells are scattered by chance, so a blind guess usually misses, and a miss cancels a right tap. When you must guess, tap the cell you have even a faint memory of seeing lit.

How to practise

  • Switch “Show the pattern” to “One cell at a time” once all-at-once feels easy. It makes you assemble the picture in your head, cell by cell, which is harder.
  • Raise “Smallest board” to start on a larger board. The same number of cells spread over more space trains placing each one exactly.
  • After a miss, read the “Lit:” line — B2, D3 and so on — and find the shape or the loner you lost.
  • Set “Cells at level 0” near where you start to fail, so the session is spent on patterns 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.

More memory

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