Kim's Game — free online memory game
About this game
A tray of objects, a moment to study it, a cloth over the tray — and something has changed when it comes back. Kim's Game is the century-old observation drill that scouts, soldiers and pilots have used to sharpen attention to detail.
How to play Kim's Game
- 1Study the tray — one item will be swapped while it's covered.
- 2When it's back, click the item that wasn't there before.
- 3The tray persists — every round swaps one more. 3 misses end the run.
What Kim's Game trains
Kim's Game trains change detection: encoding a whole scene well enough that a single substitution screams at you. The winning habit is structured scanning — a fixed sweep order plus neighbor-linking ('anchor sits next to the bell') — because a pile of unlinked items is impossible to protect. Every round grows the tray, so lazy scanning gets punished immediately.
Category: Everyday memory · Scoring: Swaps in swaps
Tip: Scan in a fixed order and link neighbors — “anchor next to bell” survives a swap.
Why is it called Kim's Game?
After the training exercise in Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel Kim, where the boy spy memorizes trays of jewels. It became a staple of military and scout observation training, and it works because it forces genuine encoding, not just looking.
How do you get better at Kim's Game?
Scan in a fixed path so no region goes unexamined, name each object once, and link neighbors into pairs. When the swap lands, your pair breaks — a broken link is much easier to notice than a changed pile.
Is Kim's Game free?
Yes — Kim's Game is completely free, with no account, no signup and no downloads. Scores are saved privately in your browser, and you can install MemoryGames as an app from your browser menu if you want it on your home screen.