How to play
This is not a medical test. It is for entertainment and general information only. Screen and lighting affect results. See an eye care professional for a diagnosis.
You will see 14 circular plates made of colored dots. Each hides a number or a simple shape. Pick what you see, and at the end the game tells you which groups of plates came through most clearly on your screen.
Before you start
Set your screen to a normal brightness and turn off night mode, blue-light filters and any dark-mode extension that recolors pages. Play somewhere with ordinary, even light, and avoid glare. The result depends heavily on these things, so a game on a warm-tinted phone at night may look very different from one on a laptop by day.
Playing
- Press Start for a fresh random set, or Today’s plates for the set shared by everyone on the same calendar date.
- Look at the plate and choose from the four options below it. Ten plates hide a digit and four hide a shape: circle, square, triangle, diamond, cross or star.
- If you cannot make anything out, press Can’t see one.
- Your choice moves you straight to the next plate. You cannot go back, and the game does not tell you whether each answer was right.
There is no timer. Quit leaves the game and discards that run.
What the plates are
- 3 control plates (the 1st, 7th and 14th) use a big difference between light and dark dots. They are meant to be easy, and they help show whether something like screen brightness is getting in the way.
- 8 red-green plates use color pairs chosen to be harder to separate for people with common red-green differences. They come at three levels of difficulty.
- 3 blue-yellow plates use pairs along a different color direction, also at three levels of difficulty.
The order of the plates is shuffled each run, apart from the controls. The dots vary in brightness on purpose, so lightness alone should not give the figure away.
Scoring and results
There are no points or grades. A plate counts as matched only if you choose the figure it really contains. “Can’t see one” and wrong picks count the same way, as not matched. The results screen lists your count for each group, such as “Red-green plates: 5 of 8”, plus one of six informal summaries:
- Most plates came through clearly: roughly two-thirds or more matched in both color groups.
- Red-green plates were trickier this time or Blue-yellow plates were trickier this time: half or fewer matched in one group, while the other came through.
- Color-pair plates were trickier this time: half or fewer matched in both groups.
- A mixed set of plates: no strong lean either way.
- Not enough to show a pattern: two or more control plates were missed, so the run says little. This one overrides the others.
None of these summaries is a finding about your eyes. The game does not give percentages, severity levels or a type of color vision. Your last 30 games are listed on your device under “Your history on this device”, and you can copy a short text to share.
Tips for a fair run
- Look from a comfortable distance rather than very close, since the figure is easier to see as a whole.
- Give each plate a moment, then trust what you see. Harder plates can take a few seconds to resolve.
- Use “Can’t see one” honestly. With four options, a lucky guess is always possible, and it makes the counts less meaningful.
- Use the largest screen you have. Small dots on a small screen are harder for anyone.
- If you get “Not enough to show a pattern”, check your brightness and lighting first and then play again.
Questions players ask
Can this tell me whether I am colorblind?
No. It is an uncalibrated game that has had no clinical or user study. If you have any concern about your color vision, or you notice it changing, please see an eye care professional, who can test it properly.
Can it tell which type of color vision difference I have?
No. Results are grouped only as red-green and blue-yellow, and the game cannot reliably separate the different red-green types.
Why do I get different results on my phone and my computer?
Screens differ in color range, white point and brightness, and room lighting adds to that. These effects can be as large as the color differences in the plates.
Can I play more than once?
Yes, as often as you like. Each finished game is added to your history on the device, including repeats of Today’s plates.
Are good results a sign that my vision is fine?
No. A good run only means you picked out most figures on that screen, in that light. It cannot rule anything out, and it is no substitute for an eye exam.