What Comes Next
A free game where a sequence of shapes or colours appears and your child picks what comes next. Three levels, each drawing on different kinds of pattern.
- Free
- No ads
- No account
- No download
- Works offline
- Single player
How do you play?
- Pick a level - Easy, medium or hard. The kinds of pattern change, not just their length.
- Read the sequence - It runs left to right, large and clear.
- Pick what continues - Touch the option you think comes next. A mistake costs nothing.
- Move up - A correct answer brings a new pattern, sometimes from a different family.
About this game
A sequence on screen. Red, blue, red, blue. What now?
Behind this game sit 8 families of pattern, and each level draws on 3 of them. Easy gives you ABAB and AAB, cycles of length 2 and 3. Medium adds ABC, AABB and a pattern that changes size instead of colour, at lengths 3, 4 and 2. Hard moves to ABBA, a cycle of 4 with a reversal in the middle, and to 2 families with no cycle at all: one that grows and one that counts. A child who has learned to count the cycle has to work out that counting has stopped working, and that is a completely different mental step from learning a longer cycle.
There are 6 colours in total and no more. Two hues a five-year-old cannot separate on a small screen would turn a pattern game into a guessing game, so there is no second red and no second blue here. A blind guess is worth 1 in 6, or 16.7%, however clever the pattern happens to be.
There is no clock and no penalty for a wrong answer. You can stare at the sequence as long as you like, say it out loud, and try again. Levels continue without end and what gets kept is how far you got at that difficulty.
This is one of the few games here that children genuinely solve out loud. They say red blue red blue and then stop, and that pause is thinking happening audibly.
What does it teach?
Pattern recognition
The skill underneath all the mathematics that comes later, learned here without numbers.
Prediction
Not what is there but what will be. That is a real leap in a five-year-old's thinking.
Counting cycles
Every repeating pattern is counting practice in disguise, and children do it unprompted.
Noticing a changed rule
Two hard families behave unlike the others. Recognising that your method stopped working is a skill of its own.
Tips
Say the sequence out loud
Red, blue, red. Hearing it exposes the cycle long before the eye finds it.
Count the cycle
Most patterns repeat every 2, 3 or 4 items. Finding that length solves the rest by itself.
On hard, check whether it repeats at all
2 of the 3 families there never repeat. One grows and one counts, and both look broken until you see it.
Watch the size
One pattern family changes size rather than colour. Children miss it because they are only looking at colour.
What age is it for?
3 to 4
Easy. ABAB is the first pattern children grasp, and most of them grasp it right here.
5 to 6
Easy then medium. This is where three-part and size patterns start landing.
7 and up
Hard, with the families that grow and count.
Parents
No clock and no penalty, so a stuck child simply looks longer. Worth sitting alongside for hard.
Accessibility
One tap, no dragging and no holding. The options are large and well spaced. The 6 colours were chosen far apart on purpose and every shape has its own outline as well, so the game can be played by shape rather than hue. There is no clock on the answer, so the sequence can be studied for as long as needed. Nothing flashes and it plays fully in silence. The sequence runs left to right even in Hebrew, because reading order is part of the question.
Playing together
Say it together
Read the sequence aloud in turns, one item each. The cycle becomes audible immediately.
Patterns on the table
Build a sequence from buttons or blocks and ask your child to continue it. Exactly the same game, in hand.
Let them invent
They make a pattern and you continue it. Inventing is harder than solving.
Spot patterns at home
Tiles, fences, stripes on a shirt. After one round children start seeing them everywhere.
Common questions
Is the game free?
Completely. Nothing to pay and no purchases inside the game. Every game on the site is open from the first second.
Do I need to download or sign up?
No to both. It runs in the browser with no download and no account, and we do not ask for an email.
What kinds of pattern are there?
8 families, 3 per level. Easy has ABAB and AAB at cycle lengths 2 and 3, medium has ABC, AABB and a size pattern, and hard has ABBA plus 2 families that never repeat at all.
What happens on a wrong answer?
Nothing. No score drops and there are no lives, and another try is available immediately. There is no clock on the answer either.
Are there ads?
None. No banners and no video between levels.
Does it work offline?
Yes. After one visit the game is stored on the device and runs on a plane.
Why only six colours?
Because 2 hues a five-year-old cannot separate on a small screen would turn a pattern game into a guessing game. There is no second red and no second blue, deliberately.
My child cannot read yet. Is that a problem?
No. There is not a word to read, and the patterns are built from shapes and colours only.
What age is this for?
From about three on easy. ABAB is the first pattern children grasp, usually before they can count.
Does it collect data about my child?
No. There is no signup and no name. No session recording and no behavioural advertising. We count how many times a game was opened, with nothing attached that identifies who opened it.