How to play?

First, you can display this tutorial or watch the video trailer below to have a quick preview of the game.

Goal

You must mix together the 3 primary colors (red, green & bluecyan, magenta & yellowred, yellow & blue) in order to get a « numbered » tile (whiteblack) with weight 1.

Once you get 2 numbered tiles side by side, you can also merge them together in order to get a bigger numbered tile (with a bigger weight, addition of the two merges ones), save some space on the game grid, and then get a new random primary color to mix.

The final goal is to reach the highest score and get the biggest numbered tile!

Scores

Mixing & merging tiles give you some points.
Some bonus points are also added when you achieve special moves (like consecutively merging numbered tiles or achieve a « snake merge »).

> See the LEGEND screen for more informations about scoring.

Controls

You can only mix or merge tiles that are side by side, in one of the 4 directions (top, right, bottom & left / no diagonals).

Of course you can only mix or merge tiles that are compatible with each other: 2 primary colors, 1 primary color with its complementary, 2 numbered tiles.

To mix or merge tiles, just click/tap on a tile (source) and slide it to another compatible tile (target). Then release it, and it will merge with the target tile.

If you bring a source tile above an incompatible target tile, nothing happens and the source tile will come back to its initial position.

Game options

When you START A NEW GAME, you can choose several options to customize the game mechanisms.

Difficulty level

• Easy to discover the game mechanisms, with some helpers
  ( show available moves, undo the last move once every 10 moves, drag a tile above another to see the future mixed color, ...)
• Normal to play the game as you should if you already understood it, without any helpers

Grid size

You can also choose to play with 3 different sizes of game grid : 4 x 4, 5 x 4 or 5 x 5.

Statistics

You can access to several GAME STATISTICS by clicking on the scores at the top of the game grid.

You can then display the current screen (statistics of the current game playing), or the history one (statistics of previous games achieved, for each combination of difficulty levels & grid sizes).

Settings

At any time, you can CONFIGURE SOME SETTINGS, to customize the game appearance: this is just a matter of taste!!

Theme

Choose to display the whole game with the LIGHT theme based on light gray & blue (great for the daylight), or the DARK one based on dark gray & orange (better for the night).

Color Model

To switch between several theorical systems for color mixing (see wiki )
• RGB additive model (used by display systems, see wiki )
• CMY substractive model (used by printing systems, see wiki )
• RYB « oldish » historical model (used in art and painting, see wiki )

Tiles shape

Choose the shape of the tiles on the game grid: SQUARE, ROUNDED or ROUND.

Tiles color

Display the colors with their ORIGINAL values, as defined in the color models, or choose to make them SMOOTHER to have less agressive colors and save your vision.

About

WHO am I?

My name is Antoine, and at this moment in 2019, I'm a 37 years old (ouch!) french guy, married, father of 2 children & owner of 2 cats.

I'm working as a web developer, and I like that. So much that I also spent a part of my hobbies time to create websites and bring some of my obsessions ideas to life!

For example, I created years ago the TooLiPHoNe.NeT website to provide some "webapps" (iEmpty, iCustom & iSkin) to customize an iOS device without jailbreak.

Well, that's very interesting, but I guess that's all you wish to know about myself!

HOW came this idea?

I had the idea of creating this game some years ago, in 2014. This was the year when the 2048 game by Gabriele Cirulli conquered the world!

I played a lot to this addictive game, but the thing that I loved while playing it was telling to myself: « Hey! That's something I can do, and that should be very fun to create a little puzzle game like that using only some HTML, Javascript ans CSS! »

So I started thinking about a 2048 derivative, like there were dozens created after it. And I ended with a slightly different game concept in my mind: « What about mixing some colors instead of merging numbers ? ».

There are 3 primary colors to mix, and I thought there were something nice to do with it: The idea for my game was born, with all the basic principles in my mind!

I kept the grid layout with tiles, and the principle of merging them together. But the game mechanisms are new and very different than a 2048-clone at the end!

In all cases, a big thank to Gabriele Cirulli for inspiring me with its 2048 game creation!

WHEN was it crafted?

Then, I had to wait for 4 long years to make this idea come to reality. By lack of time mainly (my family & my work obviously goes first). But it was still here, in a corner of my mind, waiting for the right moment...

This moment came in early 2018 (January), when I had more time and some motivation to start a new web project. So I started making it during my free time.

The game basis was coded in a few dozen hours (but it was ugly, just a « proof of concept »). Many more dozens were needed to have a « polished final product » !

The public beta version was released on June 8th 2018. The final version was released on July 20th 2018.

WHY koloro(.io)?

Finding the name was not the easiest thing... but one of the more exciting!

This is a moment I like before starting a new development project: find a name first, then a domain URL to host it and craft a logo before starting to create something from an idea. This gives me the motivation I need to go to the end!

I was looking for a short and "strong" name that everybody can understand and remember easily. And also a free domain name that latch with it of course!

That's why I focused on the .io domain extension: I think it has a certain "cool factor", it is already used by some online games (like the famous agar.io game), and there are more available domain names than with a .com or a .net.

Then I tried many things around the concept of "colors", as it is the identity of my puzzle game. But I found nothing that really sounds good... So I tried to see how to translate "color" or "colors" in some ancient languages, like latin or greek. Not better...

Finally, I saw that Google Translate can translate in Esperanto : What a better language to be "universal"?!? The translation of the « color » word gave me the « koloro » result: BINGO! I like that!! This is strong and simple, and very "graphical" with the "o" letter every 2 letters : koloro.io.

May 2024 edit: I decided to discontinue the "koloro.io" domain (because it is quite expensive), and to rename the game only with "koloro" and continue to host it on another domain I own: "koloro.tooliphone.net"

In conclusion...

That was a lot of fun for me to create that game, think about the game mechanisms, the right balance for scoring, making the logos and the game design...

I hope you'll like to PLAY WITH IT! If yes, please don't forget to SHARE IT!