Foculo

AHMED SOUSANE

Contains ads

About this game

A group of identical white cells drifts inside a dark circle. When a round starts, one of them is red. You get a second or two to find it. Then the red fades to white, and your target looks exactly like everything else on screen. The cells keep moving, crossing and overlapping. When they stop, you tap the one you were following.

That is the whole game. There is nothing to read and no time limit to beat — the difficulty is only ever how many objects are moving, how fast, and how long you have to hold on. Three wrong picks end the run.

Levels are grouped into four sets by how many balls you follow at once: one, then two, then three, then four. Every level you finish stays unlocked, and you can go back and replay any of them whenever you want. Staying on the easier sets is a normal way to play, which helps if a younger player is using it.

Correct picks earn coins. Coins buy three optional helpers: Slow Time, which halves the speed of everything for a moment; Glimpse, which flashes your target red again; and an extra heart. They are earned by playing, and you can get through the game without using any of them.

If you want it harder, one button turns on blackouts — the screen goes dark for a fraction of a second while everything keeps moving. It is off by default.

Also included: English, Arabic and French; an option that marks the target with a ring instead of a colour fill, for players who find red hard to pick out; a reduced-motion option; and separate switches for music and sound effects.

The mechanic comes from multiple-object tracking, a task used in attention research. Foculo is a game, not a medical or diagnostic tool, and it makes no claim to improve your attention outside of it.