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Lizely

Color by Number

Complete an original 6 by 6 numbered rocket picture with four accessible palette groups, deterministic checking, and full pointer or keyboard control.

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How to use

  1. 1.Read each clue and match it to the numbered palette: 1 Background, 2 Flame, 3 Hull, or 4 Window.
  2. 2.Choose a palette button and tap cells, or move with the arrow keys and press 1 through 4; use Delete to clear a correction.
  3. 3.Paint all 36 cells, then choose Check picture or press Enter to verify the exact rocket and earn 1,000 points.

About Color by Number

Color by Number turns a small grid into an auditable pixel-art painting task. This original Lizely challenge uses a fixed six-by-six rocket with 36 numbered cells. Every printed clue belongs to one of four semantic palette groups: 1 Background, 2 Flame, 3 Hull, and 4 Window. Select a palette group and paint matching clues until every cell carries the correct group. Choose Check picture only after the grid is full. A perfect board awards exactly 1,000 points.

The picture does not depend on color recognition alone. Every cell keeps its clue number visible after painting, and a small letter identifies the intended group: B for Background, F for Flame, H for Hull, and W for Window. Palette controls repeat the number and letter. A player who cannot distinguish two rendered tones can still solve the entire board from text, position, focus, and state labels. Screen-reader labels announce row, column, clue, semantic group, and current painted number.

The fixture is fully disclosed and deterministic. Its six rows are 111311, 113331, 113431, 123332, 123332, and 221122. Read together in row-major order, the board identity is 111311113331113431123332123332221122. Those digits are original product content, not copied artwork or an external dataset. Restart always restores this same blank clue grid, so tests and players work from identical conditions.

An independent oracle stores the complete 36-digit solution separately from the implementation fixture. It verifies every position rather than checking only a total or a visual silhouette. The oracle counts 15 Background cells, 8 Flame cells, 12 Hull cells, and 1 Window cell. Those counts sum to 36, every clue belongs to exactly one palette ID from 1 through 4, and no unknown or out-of-range value appears in the answer.

Every palette group is necessary. The test suite builds four near-answer boards. In each one, all cells are correct except that every cell from one selected group is replaced with a different valid group. None of those boards can pass. This includes the single Window cell: although it contributes only one square, replacing it still prevents completion. The check is therefore exact and cannot be fooled by matching only group totals or most of the silhouette.

Painting is deliberately simple. Click or tap a numbered palette control to choose a brush, then click cells to apply that number. The selected brush is shown in the status line and with an outline around its palette button. Right-clicking a cell clears it, and the visible Clear cell button provides the same action without a context menu. Painting a cell again replaces its earlier group, so a wrong choice is always repairable before a terminal result.

Keyboard play covers the complete interaction. Arrow keys move the cursor within the six-by-six grid and clamp at its edges. Press 1, 2, 3, or 4 to paint the selected cell directly with that group; the same action also makes that group the current brush. Press Space to repeat the current brush on the selected cell, Delete or Backspace to clear it, and Enter to check the picture. Repeated keydown events are ignored, preventing a held key from racing across cells or issuing accidental checks.

Checking has three explicit outcomes. If one or more cells remain unpainted, the result is incomplete and no mistake is added. This lets you inspect a partial picture without penalty. If all 36 cells are painted but any group differs from its clue, the board is a completed wrong attempt. The first distinct wrong arrangement records one mistake and remains editable, allowing you to correct a cell and try again.

Repeating Check picture on the exact same unchanged wrong board does not consume the second strike. The state stores the 36-digit signature of the most recently counted wrong arrangement. Only after the player changes at least one cell and submits a different fully painted wrong arrangement does the second mistake count and deadlock the run. This prevents an accidental double-click from ending play while preserving the two-distinct-error contract.

Completion and deadlock are terminal states. After either result, cell painting, clearing, palette selection, cursor movement, and additional checks no longer change game state. Restart is the intentional exit and creates a fresh blank board with group 1 selected, zero mistakes, and zero score. A correct full answer receives exactly 1,000 points regardless of pointer speed, key speed, paint order, corrections, or the first counted wrong board.

The visual treatment uses only the site's existing CSS design tokens. Unpainted cells use the surface and muted tokens; the four filled groups use the existing surface, danger, accent, foreground, background, and line tokens. There are no hardcoded hexadecimal colors, no downloaded palette, and no inline color style. The number and letter redundancy remains the authoritative identity, while token colors provide a secondary visual grouping that follows the site theme.

The six-column board is constrained to a small maximum width, uses square buttons, and remains inside the viewport at 390 pixels without horizontal scrolling. Pointer targets and palette controls are sized for touch, while native buttons retain focus behavior. The shared game shell displays score and locally stored best score, provides Restart, and includes the double-Escape boss key. Press Escape twice within the shell timing window to show the spreadsheet-style cover, then twice again to return.

Everything runs in the current browser tab. No painting, clue state, result, or interaction history is uploaded. The game requires no account, remote image, package dependency, canvas export, device permission, or paid service. It is a compact recreational matching activity, not a vision test, cognitive assessment, art credential, or accessibility diagnosis. A 1,000-point result means only that this disclosed 36-cell rocket was matched exactly.

Methodology & sources

Represent the original 6 by 6 rocket as 36 row-major palette IDs and the working board as explicit 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 values, where 0 means unpainted. Independently declare the complete 36-digit golden fixture in the test, compare every position, count groups as 15, 8, 12, and 1, verify every ID maps to one semantic palette entry, and replace each complete group in turn to prove all four groups are necessary. Clamp keyboard cursor movement to the grid, allow valid paint replacement and clearing, ignore incomplete checks, and hash every full wrong board. Count only a wrong signature distinct from the previous counted one; leave the first editable and deadlock on the second distinct signature. Award exactly 1,000 only for the full position-by-position answer and freeze all gameplay input at completion or deadlock.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to distinguish the colors visually?
No. Every cell retains its clue number and group letter, and palette buttons repeat both the numeric ID and semantic group name.
Does checking an incomplete picture count as a mistake?
No. Any unpainted cell produces a non-punitive incomplete message, so you can continue filling the grid.
Can an accidental double-click on Check end the game?
No. Rechecking the same unchanged wrong full board does not add another mistake. Deadlock requires a second distinct wrong arrangement.
Is the rocket generated or copied from an external image?
No. It is a fixed original Lizely 6 by 6 fixture with a disclosed 36-digit solution and independently verified group counts.

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