Memory is the simplest possible game with an emoji deck of sixteen cards laid face-down. Tap two cards to flip them; if they match, they stay up; if not, they flip back after a moment. Repeat until the board is clear. The trick is remembering where each card was the first time you flipped it, so your second pass can find pairs deliberately instead of by luck. Score rewards both efficiency (fewer moves) and pace (less elapsed time), so a thoughtful four-move opening followed by a rush of memory finishes well. The board is freshly shuffled every round; no muscle memory carries over. Kids tend to win this kind of game against adults because their working memory is comparatively sharper, so do not be surprised if a six-year-old triples your best score over a weekend.
How to play
Click or tap any face-down card to flip it. After two are flipped, matches stay up and non-matches flip back. The board has eight pairs. Clear all eight to finish. Your score is 1000 minus five times the number of moves minus the elapsed seconds, floored at fifty. So a fifty-move two-minute round still scores around 670, while an eighteen-move twenty-second round breaks 900. Restart deals a new shuffle.
Frequently asked questions
A move is a pair of card flips. Matches and misses both count once per pair. The minimum possible move count for a clean run is exactly eight, achieved if you got every pair on the first try, which requires perfect prior knowledge of the shuffle.