Freehand five

How to play Freehand five

Every day brings five shapes, the same five for everyone: two easy ones, two trickier ones and one to show off with. Each prompt names a shape you already know, such as a circle, a heart, a spiral with even gaps or a straight line between two dots. Draw it on the blank sheet with your finger or the mouse. Some prompts ask for one stroke, and starting again wipes the old line. Press Submit and the game works out the ideal version of what you were going for, the best fitting circle, the straightened line or the evened out star, and lays it over your drawing as a dashed line. You get a score out of 100 built from closeness, symmetry and steadiness, a one line verdict and a quick replay of how you drew it. Five scores make a total out of 500. Practice mode lets you draw any of the forty seven shapes as often as you like and keeps your best score for each one.

Tips

• The ideal is fitted to your drawing, so size, position and a slight lean cost nothing. Only the shape itself counts
• Closeness is how near your lines sit to the ideal. Missing a part, like the ears on the cat, hurts more than a little drift
• Symmetry compares your drawing with its own mirror image or rotation. Spirals are checked for even gaps and waves for even crests
• Steadiness only looks at small, fast wobble. A slow, smooth line beats a quick shaky one
• Draw big. A larger drawing is easier to keep steady and the sheet has room
• Save your daily five as one picture from the end screen

About Freehand five

Drawing a clean circle without a compass has been a party trick for a long time. Giorgio Vasari wrote in 1550 that the painter Giotto answered a request for a sample of his work by drawing a flawless circle freehand in red paint. Freehand five turns that kind of test into a small daily habit. Every prompt is a familiar shape, and the scoring never compares you with a fixed picture. Instead it slides, scales and slightly turns an ideal version until it fits your drawing as well as it can, then measures what is left. The interface, the shapes and the verdicts were all made for this game, and the scoring runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you draw is uploaded.

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