How to play

DropColour has one rule. Everything else is about how long you can keep up with it.

The board

The board is a grid of empty slots. Circles appear in them on their own, one at a time, always in a random free slot. There are six colours: purple, blue, orange, red, turquoise and green.

Nothing is on a clock. You can take as long as you like over a move — the board will not wait for you.

Making a match

1. Press a circle and hold.
2. Slide it onto another circle of the same colour.
3. Let go.

If the colours match, the pair clears and you score. If they do not, the circle springs back to where it came from and nothing is lost except your streak — see below.

A plain tap, without dragging anywhere, is ignored. You only break your streak when you actually drop a circle onto a different one and the colours do not match.

Scoring and combos

Every pair is worth 10 points, multiplied by your current combo. The combo goes up with each match you make in a row and starts again from the first step the moment you fumble one.

The multiplier stops at five. Playing carefully and building a long streak is worth far more than clearing quickly and getting it wrong.

How the pace changes

New circles start arriving roughly every three quarters of a second. As your score climbs, that gap gets shorter, so the board fills faster and faster. Every 200 points the rhythm relaxes a little before tightening again.

The game ends when there is no free slot left. Your final score is saved to your leaderboard automatically.

Zen mode

Choose Zen on the menu for a round with no ending. The rules are the same, but when the board fills up it clears itself and you carry on. Nothing is recorded to the leaderboard, so it is a good place to practise or to play without thinking about a score.

A few tips

• Clear the circles nearest the middle first — they have the most neighbours, so they are the easiest to match later.
• Keep an eye on how many of each colour are left. A lone circle of a colour you have already used up is just clutter.
• Chase the streak while the board is calm, and play safe once it starts filling.
• If you are about to lose a streak, it is sometimes better to stop and plan the next two matches.

Making it easier to read

In Settings you can turn on Colour symbols. Every colour then carries its own shape — circle, square, triangle, diamond, hexagon or star — so you can play without relying on colour alone.

DropColour also follows the system Reduce Motion setting. With it on, the sliding and springing stop and everything changes instantly.

Your scores, your settings

Your best ten scores are kept on your device, with the date, and the top three get a medal. Sound, haptics, colour symbols and language are all in Settings too. Nothing leaves your device — see the Privacy Policy for the detail.

Still stuck?

There is nothing to get stuck on: if you can drag one circle onto another, you can play. If something seems broken, the Terms & Conditions page has the contact details.