Free memory game — instant play, no signup, no download
Sequence Builder shows a growing colour sequence and asks you to recreate it after each addition. Because the sequence grows by one each round, you are rebuilding the same material repeatedly — which is spaced repetition in miniature and makes the ceiling higher than a single-presentation test.
Watch the colour sequence.
Recreate it in order.
A correct recreation adds one colour.
The whole sequence replays each round, including the new element.
Your score is the longest sequence you built.
There are six colours. Round one is three colours, shown at 0.8, 0.6 or 0.35 seconds each depending on speed; every round keeps the sequence and adds one colour at the end.
One wrong colour ends the run. Your score is the round reached (round 4 is a sequence of six), saved as your best in this browser.
Sequential memory with cumulative rehearsal. Repeated exposure to the earlier items is why people reach longer sequences here than in single-presentation tests. Another memory game to try next: Which Changed?.
Sequence Builder is a colour version of the growing-sequence games that go back to Simon: the list keeps its old items and adds one each round, so you rehearse the start of the sequence every time you replay it.
That rehearsal is what lets people exceed the four-chunk limit Nelson Cowan identified for short-term memory. Naming the colours as they flash moves the list into the verbal store described by Baddeley and Hitch, which keeps order better than a visual image.
Chunk in threes. Nine items as three groups is the difference between reaching nine and stopping at six.
Name colours aloud. The verbal channel is the most reliable rehearsal route.
Rehearse the whole sequence during the replay, not just the new item.
Keep a steady tempo when recreating it. Rhythm carries order.
Because the earlier items are rehearsed every round. Repeated exposure builds a much more durable trace than a single presentation does.
Everyone hits one. Where it sits depends far more on chunking strategy than on raw capacity.
Materially. It is one of the largest single improvements available on this task.
Simon adds a distinct tone per colour, which gives you a melody to remember as well.