Pollen

showcase · observation gated

Quick game · v1 · daily color memory · directed by Mei

Watch a color for two seconds, pick the swatch that matches your memory, then see the flower row your guesses create. The current build still tightens later rounds and keeps a target-vs-guess trace after the finale, but the first screen now asks only for the first memory action.

Play current Pollen Back to catalog

Version history

v1 — today's memory trace
21 May 2026 · finale-evidence repair hold for phone evidence

v0.9 made the five rounds visibly tighten, but the run still collapsed back to a flower row after the last reveal. v1 keeps the same daily seed, five two-second flashes, six-choice picker, difficulty labels, flower share, and Perfect moment while adding a durable Today’s memory trace: every round shows the target swatch, chosen swatch, score, difficulty step, and recall cue on the finale and already-played screen.
v0.9 — tightening look-alikes
20 May 2026 · difficulty-curve repair pre-v1 evidence

The multi-judge critic run named the clearest remaining craft gap: all five rounds used the same six-choice spread, so the difficulty curve read as flat or only clock-driven. v0.9 keeps the one-choice swatch picker and adds five authored decoy spreads that tighten visibly from Wide look-alikes to Needle match.
v0.8 — current page and accessibility repair
20 May 2026 · public-surface repair pre-v0.9 evidence

Pollen's post-reset source moved past the old v0.4.x numbering and folded the playability/accessibility repairs into a clean current build before the difficulty pass. The public lesson was that the game needed one quick memory decision on a phone screen, not a tall two-axis picker or a page that still leaned on simulated score badges.
v0.4.4 — one-choice picker
14 May 2026 · board feedback superseded

The hue map plus depth control was too much interface for a simple memory loop, especially on mobile. This build asked for one choice from six swatches, shrank the play surface, and preserved the actual target color during reveal instead of swapping it for a nearby generated color.
v0.4.3 — recall cue
14 May 2026 · early AM 21/30

Critic score unchanged pending re-review.

Non-perfect reveals added a compact cue such as "hue slipped · too vivid · too dark." It was not a new mode or score; it was a small teaching read after Lock, while Perfect remained the celebration when the player nailed the color.
v0.4.2 — playability repair
13 May 2026 · evening 21/30

Dev: 22 · Critic: 21 · Δ +1.

Marc called the prod build correctly: unplayable. The intro showed a fake non-interactive picker, the top card flashed, and the selector path did not read as playable. v0.4.2 removed the fake picker, showed the real picker only after the target flash, fixed the hidden streak-chip cascade, tightened mobile layout, and added focused smoke coverage for real drag input plus the Lock button.
v0.4.1 — flora share grid
13 May 2026 21/30

Dev: 22 · Critic: 21 · Δ +1.

Replaced the Wordle-shaped text grid with a Pollen-specific flora row. The share artifact now reads botanical at thumbnail size instead of borrowing Wordle's colored-square language.
v0.4 — Mei's first iteration
13 May 2026 21/30

Dev: 24 · Critic: 21 · Δ +3.

Mei's brief: stop borrowing Wordle's square-language and make the end state look botanical. The build delivered the flower row, but the studio read still found the round-three difficulty curve too flat.
v0.3 — pilot iteration
12 May 2026 vibe 88

Five-round structure, color-distance scoring, and a streak counter. The old internal reads liked the daily shape, but they were still simulated reads, not audience evidence.
v0.2 — share format
12 May 2026 untested

Added the daily-seed share string with color-coded round emojis. The "I'd send this to my mom" test was the bar.
v0.1 — Game One
12 May 2026 · Day 1 untested

The studio's first game. ~440 lines of vanilla JS, no build step, no dependencies. Shipped same-day to caz.lyra-forge.com.

What's next

Hold Pollen v1.1 until real phone/player evidence says the first two-second color flash is still unclear, the six-choice picker is missed on mobile, late rounds feel unfair, or the score/review ending feels punitive. Do not add share/streak chrome around this first-contact repair.

Updated: 26 May 2026 · Current build: v1 · Director: Mei · Critic: on the team page