ColorChase is a daily color palette guessing game that challenges you to identify five hidden colors in six attempts or fewer. Every day at 9 AM, a new palette is generated, and your goal is to recreate it as accurately as possible. Think of it like Wordle, but instead of guessing letters, you're selecting colors from an interactive color wheel.
Here's how each game works:
The challenge lies in interpreting the feedback accurately and making strategic color adjustments. With practice, you'll develop an intuitive understanding of how colors relate to each other and how to navigate the color space efficiently.
The color wheel in ColorChase is your primary tool for selecting colors. Understanding how it works is crucial to improving your game. The wheel is organized around three fundamental properties of color:
Hue is what we typically think of as "color"—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and everything in between. On the color wheel, hue is represented by the circular ring. Moving around the wheel changes the basic color family. For example, starting at red and moving clockwise takes you through orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple before returning to red.
Pro tip: Hues directly across from each other on the wheel are called complementary colors. They create maximum contrast and can be useful reference points when making educated guesses about palette composition.
Saturation controls how vivid or muted a color appears. On most color wheels, saturation increases as you move from the center toward the edge. A fully saturated color is vibrant and pure—think of a bright red fire truck. A desaturated version of the same hue appears grayish and muted—like a dusty rose pink.
Many beginning players overlook saturation, focusing only on hue. However, getting the saturation right is often the difference between a close guess and a perfect match. If your feedback suggests you have the right general color but something's off, try adjusting the saturation.
Brightness, sometimes called value or lightness, determines how light or dark a color appears. This is typically controlled by a separate slider in the color picker. At maximum brightness, colors appear light and luminous. At minimum brightness, all colors become black regardless of their hue or saturation.
Understanding brightness is essential for distinguishing between colors that might look similar at first glance. For instance, a dark blue and a light purple might seem like the same color family, but they differ significantly in both hue and brightness.
If you're new to ColorChase, here are some strategies to help you get started and avoid common pitfalls:
For your first guess, choose five colors that are clearly different from each other. For example, you might select red, yellow, green, blue, and purple—colors evenly distributed around the color wheel. This approach helps you quickly identify which general hue families are present in the target palette. Think of it as "sampling the color space" to narrow down possibilities.
Daily palettes aren't random collections of colors—they're usually designed with some harmony or relationship in mind. Look for patterns like analogous colors (neighbors on the color wheel), complementary pairs (opposites), or monochromatic variations (same hue, different brightness/saturation). Recognizing these relationships can help you predict what other colors might be in the palette.
After your first guess, don't make wild changes. If a color feels close, make small adjustments to hue, saturation, or brightness one at a time. This methodical approach helps you isolate which property needs changing. Dramatic changes make it harder to learn from your previous guess.
Rather than trying to adjust all five colors simultaneously, consider perfecting one or two colors per attempt. This focused approach is less overwhelming and helps you build confidence as you see individual colors "lock in" with each successful match.
Different screens display colors slightly differently. Don't worry about getting colors "perfectly" accurate in absolute terms. The game is consistent for all players, so everyone is working with the same relative color relationships. Focus on making your guesses better relative to the feedback, not achieving pixel-perfect accuracy.
Once you've played for a few weeks and feel comfortable with the basics, these advanced techniques can help you improve your success rate and lower your average number of guesses:
Professional designers often create palettes using established color harmony principles. Familiarize yourself with these common structures:
When you identify one or two colors in the palette, consider what harmony structure they might belong to, then test colors that fit that pattern.
After a few guesses, you'll have learned what the colors are NOT. Use this negative knowledge strategically. If you've tried several warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) without success, the palette likely favors cool colors (blues, greens, purples). This elimination process helps you narrow the search space faster.
Advanced players develop the ability to remember and recreate specific colors they've seen before. Practice this skill in daily life: try to memorize a color from your environment and then recreate it on the color wheel. This strengthens your color memory and makes you faster at dial in specific shades during gameplay.
For designers comfortable with digital color formats, thinking in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) or hex codes can provide a more analytical approach. Each color is composed of red, green, and blue light in varying intensities. Understanding this can help you make more precise adjustments. For instance, if a color feels too purple, you need to reduce blue or increase red and green.
Improve your ColorChase skills by practicing color perception in your daily environment. Try to identify the hue, saturation, and brightness of objects around you. Use design tools or color pickers to test your estimates. This real-world practice translates directly to better performance in the game.
While you don't need formal color theory knowledge to enjoy ColorChase, understanding a few key concepts can significantly improve your gameplay and deepen your appreciation for color:
Colors are often described as warm (reds, oranges, yellows) or cool (blues, greens, purples). This temperature quality affects how colors feel and interact. Warm colors tend to advance visually and feel energetic, while cool colors recede and feel calming. Many palettes balance warm and cool colors for visual interest.
Colors don't exist in isolation—they're always perceived in relation to surrounding colors. The same gray can appear warm when surrounded by cool colors or cool when surrounded by warm colors. This principle, called simultaneous contrast, means you should always evaluate your color guesses in relation to the other colors in your palette, not in absolute terms.
Don't overlook grays, browns, and desaturated colors. These neutrals are often the hardest to guess because they require precise control of both saturation and brightness. A "gray" might actually be a highly desaturated blue, green, or purple. When working with neutrals, pay special attention to subtle color casts or undertones.
These terms describe variations of a base hue. A tint is created by adding white (increasing brightness), a shade by adding black (decreasing brightness), and a tone by adding gray (decreasing saturation). Understanding these concepts helps you make more targeted adjustments when a color is close but not quite right.
Even experienced players can fall into these traps. Being aware of them can help you progress faster:
ColorChase automatically tracks your performance over time. Your stats include:
Most players see significant improvement within their first month of daily play. Your guess distribution should gradually shift toward lower numbers as your color perception skills develop. Don't be discouraged by early struggles—every professional designer had to start somewhere, and ColorChase provides a fun, low-pressure way to develop these skills.
Your collection page shows all the palettes you've successfully guessed, creating a beautiful, growing archive of your ColorChase journey. Many players find inspiration in their collections, sometimes even using past palettes in their design work.
Now that you understand the rules, strategies, and color theory behind ColorChase, it's time to put your knowledge into practice. Remember: improvement comes from consistent daily play, careful observation, and learning from each attempt. Every guess teaches you something new about color perception.
The most important tip of all? Have fun! ColorChase is designed to be enjoyable whether you win in one guess or use all six attempts. Each day brings a new challenge and a new opportunity to train your eye for color.
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