How to play
Every picture is a grid of squares, and every square shows the number of the colour it needs. Choose a colour, fill its numbers, and watch a little picture grow.
Try it on a tiny flower. Eight by eight squares, four colours, about a minute. It doesn’t count towards anything.
Colouring
- Pick a colour in the paint tray. Each one shows its number, its name and how many squares are left.
- Tap a square with that number, or drag across several at once. Fast drags still fill every matching square on the way.
- Squares with a different number stay as they are, and a short note tells you which colour they need.
- When a colour is used up, the tray moves on to the next one for you.
Seeing the numbers
Small screens show the whole picture first; zoom in to read the numbers. Pinch with two fingers, scroll the mouse wheel, or use the + and − buttons. Fit shows the whole picture again. To move around, drag with two fingers, turn on Pan, or hold Space and drag with the mouse.
The squares for your chosen colour are marked with diagonal lines and an outline, so you can find them without relying on colour. Lost? Find a square takes you to one that still needs the chosen colour. It never colours anything for you.
Undo and starting again
Undo takes back your last stroke, and Redo puts it back. Your last 32 strokes can be undone, even after you reload the page. Start this picture again (in the menu) asks before clearing anything.
Keyboard
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ← → ↑ ↓ | Move between squares (hold Shift to jump four). Each square is read out: its row, column, number and whether it’s coloured. |
| Enter or Space | Colour the square with the selected colour |
| 1 to 9 | Pick colour 1 to 9 (colours 10 to 12 are in the tray; use Tab to reach them) |
| + − F | Zoom in, zoom out, fit the picture |
| H | Find a square for the selected colour |
| Z Y | Undo, redo (Ctrl or Cmd works too) |
| Esc | Pause menu |
Daily pictures and streaks
A new daily picture arrives at midnight UTC, the same for everyone. Colour it on its day to add a day to your streak. If you start before midnight, you have until 2 a.m. UTC to finish and still count it. Past dailies in the archive are for fun and never change your streak. After the first 60 days, some dailies are encores of earlier pictures, and they say so.
Finished pictures
When the last square is in, the grid fades away. Download PNG saves a crisp copy, 16 pixels for every square, with a see-through background. Colour it again starts a fresh copy; it doesn’t add another first finish or another streak day.