A lighthouse lens at night with four lamps. The light plays a sequence; you play it back. Each round it adds one more. Simon, 1978, turned a quarter so the lamps face the compass.
Mood, both ways
The game keeps two numbers with you. Each lamp you get right raises its energy, each sequence you finish raises it more, and every eighth step reached lifts both. A miss lowers its calm. Time brings both back toward the dial you set.
- DAWN warming up. A little extra time to answer, cool colors, a slow major arpeggio under the lens.
- FLOW a clean run. Bright lamps, the music opens up.
- RUSH faster playback, the lamps go dark between flashes, raster bars in the border, more sparks.
- DRIFT after a miss. The light plays slower and waits longer for you; the notes thin out.
Your side is the dial: CALM (a miss replays the same sequence; there is no game over); PLAY (one miss ends the game); RUSH (starts hot, the light plays fast). The mood tape from your session stays in this browser, and when you leave after a game, the game hands its mood to the town.
Two machines
ATARI 800XL (1983, POKEY). The Graphics 0 blue with a black border. Lamp tones are raw square waves, in the POKEY spirit. A blue READY and a RUN before the lens lights.
COMMODORE 64 (1982, SID). The blue field inside a light-blue border. Lamp tones are triangle waves and the music runs through a resonant filter, in the SID spirit. 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE, then LOAD, then RUN.
The lamps take the four colors each machine gives Breakwater's bricks. Nothing is emulated and nothing is copied: the pixel font, the lens, the tones and the music were written for this page. Read the research note on Simon.
The rules
Four lamps clockwise from the top: north green (E), east red (A), south yellow (C#), west orange (E). Together they sound an A major chord, after Simon's four bugle-like tones. Playback speeds up after the 5th, 9th and 13th step of a sequence, as Simon's did. A wrong lamp, or waiting too long, sounds a low buzz and shows the lamp that was due. Your best is the longest sequence you repeated.
FREE turns the lens into a four-note instrument: hold a lamp to sound it, slide between lamps to play a run.
Controls
- Tap or click the lamps. Tap anywhere to start.
- Keys: ↑ → ↓ ← or W D S A, or 1 2 3 4 clockwise from the top, play the lamps. Space starts, P pauses, F full screen, M sound, C scanlines, X switches machines, Z turns the dial, T free play.
- FULL uses the Fullscreen API. iOS Safari has none for pages, so the stage fills the screen instead; add to Home Screen for the whole display.