Spot the Difference

What is spot the difference?

Spot the difference is one of the oldest picture puzzles there is: two copies of the same drawing, one of them quietly altered in a few places, and you have to find every change. It has filled the puzzle pages of newspapers and children's magazines for generations, and in French it is still often called "le jeu des 7 erreurs", the game of the seven mistakes.

Here every scene is an original painting made for this game: thirty-two of them, from a fireside room, a farmhouse kitchen and a fishing harbour to a coral reef, a spice bazaar and a snowy market square. In the copy, a few small things were repainted: something is gone, has changed colour or turned into something else. Everywhere else the two pictures are identical to the pixel, so whatever looks different really is a difference.

How to play

Find every difference before the clock runs out.

• Tap a difference in either picture. It gets a ring in both pictures.
• Wrong taps cost 5 seconds. A second tap on a difference you have already found costs nothing.
• Zoom. Pinch with two fingers, or use the mouse wheel, to zoom both pictures together; drag with one finger to look around. The Zoom button doubles the pictures and brings them back.
• Hint rings one difference you still have to find, dashed, for 30 seconds off the clock. You still tap it yourself, and a new hint waits until that one is found.
• Keyboard. The arrow keys move an aim over the picture (Shift for big steps) and Enter taps there.
• Score. 100 points for every difference found, plus 5 points for each second left on the clock when you find the last one. Higher is better. If time runs out you keep the points for what you found, and the differences you missed are shown.

The levels are easy (5 differences, 3 minutes, a generous aim), medium (6 differences, 4 minutes) and hard (7 differences, 5 minutes, a tight aim: tap close to the change).

Strategy tips

1. Sweep, do not stare. Go over the pictures in strips, top to bottom, comparing the same small area in both before moving on.
2. Check the edges and corners. Changes like to hide on shelves, window sills and the rims of the picture, where the eye rarely rests.
3. Look for three kinds of change. Something missing (an empty shelf, a bare branch), something recoloured (a red cup that is now blue) and something swapped for something else.
4. Zoom on busy areas. A crowded shelf or a flower bed is much easier to compare at double size.
5. Save the hint for the end. Thirty seconds is a lot early on; when one last difference refuses to show itself, it is a good trade.

FAQ

Is Spot the Difference free to play?

Yes. Like every game on Play, it runs free in your browser, with no download and no account needed.

Where do the pictures come from?

They are original paintings made for this game, thirty-two in all, with no text, logos or real people. The differences were painted into the copy by hand-picked edits in small circles, so the rest of the picture is untouched.

Does it matter which picture I tap?

No. The two pictures are the same size and line up exactly, so a tap on a spot in either one counts for both.

What is the daily scene?

Every day everyone gets the same medium scene, with the same six differences, so scores compare directly on the daily leaderboard.