What Comes Next? A picture pattern puzzle
What Comes Next? shows a row of pictures that follows a rule, such as apple, pear, lemon, apple, pear, lemon, with a question mark at the end. Pick the picture that belongs in its place from four choices. A game has 8 rows, and you can play a round right here, free, with no sign-up.
Play a free round of What Comes Next?
Spot the pattern and choose the next picture. No sign-up, and speed never counts.
How to play
- Look along the row and find the part that repeats.
- Work out where in that repeat the row stops.
- Tap the picture that comes next in the pattern.
There is no countdown: a row stays on the screen until you choose. After a right pick, the next row appears by itself in under a second. After a wrong one, the question mark turns into the right picture, marked ✓, your pick is marked ✗, and the game waits for you to tap Next.
Three patterns, worked through
These rows use the game's own pictures and rules.
Level 1: two pictures take turns
⭐ 🌙 ⭐ 🌙 ⭐ ?
Star, moon, star, moon, star. The two pictures take turns and the row ends on a star, so the moon comes next.
Level 3: one picture comes twice
🐶 🐶 🐱 🐶 🐶 🐱 🐶 ?
The repeat is dog, dog, cat. It's tempting to pick the cat, but count from the last cat instead: only one dog has come since, and the rule needs two. So a dog comes next.
Level 4: one picture keeps coming back
▲ ■ ▲ ● ▲ ■ ▲ ● ▲ ?
Every other picture is the triangle. In the gaps between the triangles, the square and the circle take turns. The last gap held a circle, so the square comes next.
A tip for longer rows
From Level 3 up, the rows get longer. At Levels 4 and 5 the repeat is four or five pictures.
- Read from the right-hand end. The game can start a row anywhere in its repeat, so the first picture isn't always the start of the rule. The end of the row is the part you need to continue.
- Find a landmark. A picture that appears only once in each repeat, like the cat above, shows where one repeat ends and the next begins.
Levels
The repeat gets longer as the levels go up, and so does the row.
| Level | Pictures in the repeat | Example repeat | Pictures in the row |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | ⭐ 🌙 | 5 |
| 2 | 2 or 3 | 🍎 🍐 🍋 | 5 or 6 |
| 3 | 3, sometimes with one picture twice | 🐶 🐶 🐱 | 7 |
| 4 | 4 | ▲ ■ ▲ ● | 9 |
| 5 | 4 or 5 | 🔺 🔺 🔷 🔷 ⭐ | 9 or 11 |
The free round above is Level 2, so its rows repeat two or three pictures.
The pictures
Each row uses one of five sets, and all four choices come from that same set:
- Shapes: 🔺 🔷 ⭐ ❤️ 🌙
- Sky and weather: ⭐ 🌙 ☀️ ☁️ ⚡
- Fruit: 🍎 🍐 🍋 🍇 🍒
- Animals: 🐶 🐱 🐭 🐰 🐻
- Plain shapes: ▲ ■ ● ◆ ★
The screenshot above was taken on a Windows computer. On an iPhone or iPad the same pictures look like Apple's emoji.
Scoring
The score is out of 100. The free round plays in relaxed mode, and so does the app until you change it. Then only right answers count: 6 right rows out of 8 makes 75. A member who switches relaxed mode off in Account → Settings gets up to 70 points for right answers and up to 30 for pace. Pace earns all 30 at an average of 3 seconds a row or less, and nothing at 12 seconds or more.
Questions about What Comes Next?
Is there always one clear answer?
Yes. Every row shows its repeat at least twice before the question mark, so the rule is there to be found. Only one of the four choices continues it.
Do I need to tell colors apart?
No. The pictures in each set differ by shape, and after you choose, right and wrong are shown with ✓ and ✗ marks, never by color alone.
Why did a row start with a different picture this time?
The game starts each row at a random point in its repeat. Lemon, apple, pear, lemon, apple, pear follows the same rule as apple, pear, lemon. It just begins in a different place.
If you like this one, Follow the Lights is the other pattern game: watch a few numbered lights flash, then tap them in the same order. All 12 games are on the games page.