About Shade Match

The board fills with a colour, and swatches appear on it. One of them is exactly the board's colour; the others are a shade lighter or darker. Tap the match before the bar across the top runs out. Get it wrong, or run out of time, and you lose one of three hearts.

Every round the wrong swatches creep closer to the right one, there are more of them — four, then six, then nine — and there is a little less time. Early rounds are a glance; later ones are a hard look at shades a couple of percent apart. The differences are mostly in lightness, so the game works whatever your colour vision, and a Greys mode takes colour out of it altogether.

A match is worth ten points and up to ten more for speed. The daily run shows everyone the same colours in the same places; free play deals a new run in colour or in greys.

Tips to win

• Look at the swatch's edge against the board: the match disappears into it
• Rule out the obvious ones first, then compare the two that are left
• Don't rush the late rounds: the speed bonus is only worth half a match
• A dimmer screen and a straight-on view make fine shades easier to judge