Déjà Vu Game

Sea mines sink toward a turret on the sea floor, one after another, each carrying a picture. Most pictures are new, and some come back later in the wave. Fire at a mine only when its picture has already come down this wave, and press New for the new ones, which drift away. It is the continuous recognition test from memory research, turned into an arcade game.

How to play

1. Sea mines sink one after another, and each carries a picture.
2. The lowest mine is the target, with a ring round it. If its picture has already come down this wave, tap Seen it to fire a torpedo.
3. If its picture is new, tap New. It is logged and drifts away.
4. A mine whose picture came before and reaches the sea floor costs a shield. Firing at a new picture costs your streak and 50 points.
5. Each new wave starts with nothing seen, adds pictures and stretches the gaps.

The first wave has 8 different pictures, and 4 of them come back once, each after 2 to 6 other pictures. Each wave after it adds 2 pictures and one more that comes back, up to 30 pictures and 15 that come back, and stretches the longest gap by 4 pictures, up to 30. A mine sinks for 9 seconds in the first wave and a little faster in each wave after it, down to 6 seconds.

Tap New on a picture that came before and the mine drops a step and shows SEEN under it: shoot it before it lands. A new picture left to sink costs nothing but your streak. You have three shields.

On a keyboard, press S or 1 for Seen it, and N or 2 for New. Escape or Space pauses, and pausing hides the pictures. Words mode sinks words instead of pictures.

Scoring

The sooner you know a picture, the more it is worth, and your streak multiplies it.

• A mine shot when its picture came before scores 50, plus up to 50 more for how high it still is.
• A new picture logged New scores 10.
• Every 5 right answers in a row raise the multiplier by one, up to ×5. A wrong answer, or a mine that reaches the sea floor, starts it again.
• A mine shot after a wrong answer showed it scores 10.
• Firing at a new picture takes 50 points away.
• A wave with no wrong answer and nothing on the sea floor adds 200.

Your five best scores in each mode are saved in this browser, with the wave each game reached. In practice, no shields are lost, so the game goes on until you end it from the pause screen. Practice games are not saved.

How to know a picture you have seen

Most pictures feel a little familiar after a few waves, which is what makes the game hard: a picture from an earlier wave counts as new in this one. Memory athletes beat that feeling by giving each picture a moment of its own. Picture the anchor on a spot in a memory palace, or tie it into a quick story with the pictures around it, and a repeat lands on a place that is already taken. See how to create mnemonic images for more ways to make them stick.

Try our other free memory games, such as Echo Invaders for working memory or Vault Heist for remembering what was in a room.