How to play
Each photo appears for a fraction of a second and then disappears, and your job is to type what it was. When you lock in your guess, the photo comes back so you can see how close you got.
Three dailies
There are three dailies every day, Animals, Cars and Landmarks, and everyone who plays a daily gets the same six photos that day. You can play the one you know best or all three, and each has its own score and its own ranking. New dailies start at midnight UTC.
A round
- Press Ready, or Space on a keyboard, when you're looking at the screen.
- Keep your eyes on the small white dot, because the photo appears right where it is.
- Type what you saw. You can take as long as you like, and if you missed it completely, choose "I didn't catch it".
- The photo comes back with the answer circled in red pencil.
You only get to see each photo once, and reloading the page won't bring it back.
Shorter every round
The first photo stays up for a quarter of a second, and every round after that is shorter, down to 33 milliseconds for the last one.
| Frame | Flash | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| 1A | 250 ms | ×1 |
| 2A | 150 ms | ×1.5 |
| 3A | 100 ms | ×2 |
| 4A | 67 ms | ×3 |
| 5A | 50 ms | ×4 |
| 6A | 33 ms | ×5 |
The first few rounds are fair for anyone and the last couple are hard even for experts, which is why they're worth more. If you're curious how anyone names a photo they saw for 33 milliseconds, the science page explains what your brain can pick up in that time.
Scoring
The closer your guess, the more it's worth. Naming the photo exactly (red fox) or nearly (fox) earns its points multiplied by the round's bonus, while a broad answer such as dog family or animal earns a small fixed amount, so a lucky "animal" on a short flash never beats properly naming a longer one.
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Exact | 100 × bonus |
| Close | 65 × bonus |
| Related | 35 |
| Broad | 15 |
| Miss | 0 |
A perfect day is worth 1650 points. At the end you'll see your total, how many of the six you named and the shortest flash you named, and you can share a one-line result that doesn't give away any answers.
The photos
Every photo is a real photograph used under its licence, and you'll see the photographer and source when it comes back. If one of them is yours and something isn't right, let us know.
Fair play
You can't find the answer by looking through the page, because it only reaches your browser after you've locked in your guess. You don't need an account either, since the game remembers your progress with a single anonymous cookie (more in Privacy).