Pigment — mix the color

Pigment is a color mixing game. A small dish shows you a color. Around a white porcelain bowl sit pots of paint: the three primary colors, red, yellow and blue, then white and black on the harder levels. Your job is to make the same color again, by pouring the right dose of each. Blue and yellow turn green, red and yellow turn orange, a touch of white softens everything, and a single drop of black goes a long way. The paint behaves like real paint: it lands in thick glossy dollops, marbles when you stir it, and slowly blends into one color.

How to play

Tap a pot to send one dollop of paint into the bowl, or keep your finger on it to pour. Then stir the bowl with your finger: the colors swirl into each other and the paint keeps the trace of your gesture. You only find out how close you are once the paint is well stirred: the percentage appears next to the target, and if your mix matches, the bowl lights up and your color joins the row of the ones you have made, with a gold ring when you used the fewest drops possible. Too much blue, or a color you did not mean to add? Tap the little minus under its pot and a dollop goes back in (Undo takes back the last one), or empty the bowl and start again. And if a color resists after a few tries, the pot to reach for starts to glow. Four little jars hold gold glitter, rainbow glitter, pearl dust and tiny stars: sprinkle them in whenever you like, and when the target itself sparkles you will need the same sparkle. Easy uses only red, yellow and blue; Medium adds white for the pale shades; Hard adds black for the deep ones. You can also change the table (slate, walnut, marble), skip to the next color, or save a picture.

Why it's satisfying

It is the pleasure of real paint without the mess: the plop of each dollop, the marbled spirals that follow your finger, the moment the last streak disappears and the two colors become one. You learn by feel how colors are made, one drop at a time, and there is always another shade waiting.

About

Pigment is part of Alcy, fifty-four free contemplative micro-games in your browser. For more color and matter: Slime, Ink, Pottery.