Memory Match

How to play

1. How do you start a round of Memory Match?: The board deals itself as the page loads — there is no start screen. Tapping any card both finishes the deal animation and flips that card, so your first real move takes a single tap. The four board sizes sit right under the board and switching one starts a fresh round.
2. How do you match a pair?: Tap one card to see its icon, then tap a second. Two identical icons glow mint green, get a tick and vanish, leaving two empty recesses. Two different icons stay face up for a moment and then flip back — tap once during that pause to end the wait immediately.
3. What happens when you get it wrong?: Nothing bad. Memory Match has no timer running out, no move limit and no miss limit, so there is only one ending: a cleared board. The only things you chase are your time and your move count, and the interface never calls a flip a mistake.
4. How is a round scored?: Clear every pair to finish. The summary card shows time, moves and misses, and compares them with your best run on that board size. From there you can start a new deal, replay the exact same deal, or copy a link so someone else can play the identical board.

Rules & variants

Memory Match basics: every card starts face down and every icon appears on exactly two cards. Flip two cards — identical icons pair up and leave the board, different icons stay face up briefly and then flip back. Clear the whole board to finish. That is the only outcome the game has: there is no clock running out, no move cap and no losing state.

The four board sizes: Easy 4×3 (6 pairs), Normal 4×4 (8 pairs, the default), Hard 6×4 (12 pairs) and Expert 6×6 (18 pairs). Difficulty comes from the number of pairs alone — no time pressure, no decoy icons. Which icons a round uses is drawn from the deal seed, so two rounds on the same board rarely share an icon set. The size selector sits under the board; once you have matched at least one pair it asks for a second tap before it throws the round away.

The three numbers a round produces: moves counts completed two-card judgements, incrementing the moment the second card turns over — flipping the first card and deselecting it do not count. Misses counts the failed moves where the first card's partner had already been turned over earlier, meaning the information was in your head and you did not use it. Time is a stopwatch, not a countdown, and it pauses whenever the tab goes to the background. The three always satisfy: moves = pairs + failed moves, and misses never exceeds failed moves.

Flip-back timing and animation: mismatched cards stay visible for 500 ms (Fast), 900 ms (Normal) or 1600 ms (Slow), switchable mid-round from the settings drawer without restarting the deal. Input is locked during that pause — no tap can ever turn a third card face up; instead the first tap ends the wait. Every animation, from the card-by-card deal to the clear sweep and the summary card, can be skipped with a tap, and the system "reduce motion" preference switches to a minimal presentation without changing a single number.

Deal codes and the daily board: each round carries a 7-character code such as ba9x2m1 — board size, deck, then a five-character seed. The summary card copies a link that opens the very same board for anyone else, and the settings drawer accepts a code directly. The daily board derives its seed from today's date on your own device, so it works offline and everyone gets the same 6×4 deal; only your first completion of the day is recorded, later attempts are marked as practice.

Strategy that actually helps: scan in zones rather than tapping around the whole board, because a small region is far easier to hold in memory. Remember icon plus position, not just the icon — when you recall one, ask yourself which row and column it was in. Early on, prefer turning over a card you have never seen: information is worth the most while the board is unknown. Finally, read your miss count when you review a round — part of your move count is unavoidable exploration, but every miss is information you already had and failed to use, and that is the half you can train.

Age range and accessibility: the smallest board has only six pairs and needs no explanation, so it works for young children playing alongside an adult. The eighteen icons have deliberately dissimilar outlines and their colours are redundant, so the board is still playable in greyscale. A face-up card lifts and gains a gold outline, a matched pair glows mint green with a tick, and a cleared slot is a sunken recess — you can tell selected, matched and cleared apart from the picture alone. Every card is a real focusable button and screen readers announce its position and icon name.

Worked example (Normal 4×4, 8 pairs): suppose the first three moves are pure exploration and all fail, the fourth pairs up from memory, and later two moves fail on a card whose partner had already been seen. The round ends at 14 moves with 2 misses. Check it: 8 successful pairs plus 6 failed moves is exactly 14 moves, and 2 misses is within those 6 failures. With r = moves ÷ pairs = 1.75 the round is rated "Nicely done". If your best on this board is 11, the summary reads "this run 14 moves · best 11" and the record stands.

Worked example (Easy 4×3, 6 pairs): the very first tap flips a card and the second tap on the same card puts it back — that deselection costs no move, but the card now counts as seen. A later failed move starts on a card whose partner is exactly that deselected one, so it scores a miss. The round finishes with 6 pairs plus 3 failed moves = 9 moves, r = 1.5, also "Nicely done". If your previous best was 11 moves this sets a new move record; with the timer switched off the time slot shows a dash and the time record is left untouched, because move records and time records are kept separately.

FAQ