The classic concentration game: every card starts face down, you flip two at a time, and matching pictures stay open while mismatches turn back over — remembering where each card sits is the whole skill. Four difficulties from 12 cards (easy) to 36 (expert), with moves and time tracked against your best record per level. The pictures are emoji, so the same board works in any language, for kids and adults alike.
Records compare moves first, then time — in this game skill is memory, not click speed.
A perfect game equals one move per pair (8 moves on a 16-card board): you remembered everything you saw.
Mismatched cards stay visible for 0.8 seconds; tapping a third card closes them immediately and play continues.
Records are stored only in your browser (localStorage); nothing is sent to a server.
The mathematics of this game gives a surprisingly clear rule: collect known pairs first; otherwise, explore unseen cards.
If your first flip matches a card you have already seen, take the pair immediately. If not, make your second flip an unseen card — re-flipping a known non-match wastes the move and gains nothing.
Why unseen cards win: even a miss teaches you one new picture, and a lucky match remains possible. Flipping two already-seen non-matching cards throws both benefits away.
On large boards (24–36 cards), memorise in zones — "top-left 2×2 has the apple and the moon" — the chunking trick from memory psychology.
Holding card positions briefly in mind is visuospatial working memory, the same faculty you use to keep a phone number in your head.
Working-memory capacity is famously about three to five chunks. That is why the 36-card board defeats adults too: 18 pair locations far exceed capacity, and only chunking strategies tame it.
Practice reliably improves your play. Evidence that game gains transfer to everyday memory is weak, though — honest framing is mental exercise, not brain training.
The same game played with a standard deck is called Concentration or Pelmanism in English and shinkei-suijaku ("nervous breakdown") in Japan — reputedly because sustaining that much attention frays the nerves.
As a boxed game, Ravensburger's "Memory" (1959) made the name generic for the whole genre.
A full deck gives 26 pairs; web and app versions usually run 12 to 36 cards, and this page uses the same range.
12 cards (6 pairs) — working memory alone covers the board; aim for the perfect 6-move game.
16 cards (8 pairs) — sweep unseen cards early to build a map, then harvest the pairs.
24 cards (12 pairs) — zoning becomes mandatory; memorise in blocks of four to six cells.
36 cards (18 pairs) — you cannot hold it all. Keep the last four to six cards exact, tag the rest as merely "seen or not", and spend your memory where it pays.
The theoretical minimum equals the number of pairs (8 moves on 16 cards). Finishing 16 cards in 10–12 moves is a genuinely good game, and staying under 12 consistently means the known-pairs-first strategy has become habit.
Random flipping needs close to twice the pair count — around 14 moves on 16 cards — so anything below that is your memory actually working.
Records here compare moves before time, so never mis-remembering a seen card beats tapping fast.
A card game where all cards start face down and you reveal two at a time looking for identical pictures. It is known as Concentration or Memory in English, and as shinkei-suijaku (nervous breakdown) in Japan. Simple rules make it work as a kids' memory exercise and an adult brain teaser alike.
Before opening anything, check whether two cards you have already seen form a pair. When you must explore, flip unseen cards rather than re-flipping known ones — even a miss earns new information.
Every two-card flip is one move. Clearing a 16-card board in 8 moves is a perfect game with no misses.
The game exercises visuospatial working memory — holding "what is where" briefly in mind. You will clearly get better at the game itself; evidence that this transfers to everyday memory is weak, so treat it as enjoyable mental exercise rather than therapy.
Yes. The pictures are fruit and animal emoji, so no reading is needed, and the 12-card board suits preschoolers. It runs entirely in the browser with no redirects.