A focus game with a score you can beat

What are the rounds?

Search: a grid of 00 pairs with one different pair, such as OQ, O0, 0O or Q0. You tap the odd pair. A wrong tap counts as an error and you get 6 seconds per grid.

Hold: digits from 0 to 9 appear one at a time and you tap only on 7. The pace shrinks by 4 percent every three digits, down to a floor of 450 milliseconds. A slip is a tap on another digit or a missed 7. The round ends at your first slip.

Switch appears in the daily game. The rule flips between higher and even every three items, and the cost of the switch is compared with a repeat.

All rounds use a seed. That means the same code always produces the same grids, which is how duels stay fair. The rounds are short on purpose: each one takes seconds, so the game can sit in front of a feed without becoming an obstacle you resent.

What does a Search round look like on screen?

Each grid is a block of pairs written with the characters O, Q and 0, which look alike at a glance. All pairs match except one, and you tap that one. The hero line reads Find the odd pair, and a counter shows which grid you are on. You get 6 seconds per grid, and a wrong tap counts as an error.

The Hold round looks emptier. One digit at a time fills the screen and the instruction reads Tap only on 7. A large tap area sits below it, with Pause and Leave controls on the screen. Leaving a gate round counts as a fail, so pause only when something real interrupts you.

What is the span score?

Span is the number of seconds you held the Hold round before your first slip, shown to one decimal. A result screen also shows a focus score from 0 to 100, your search speed and your accuracy. The focus score weighs span at 50 percent, search at 30 percent and switch at 20 percent. During onboarding there is no switch round, so the weights are 60 and 40.

What about the goldfish line?

The result screen mentions an old myth that goldfish hold attention for 9 seconds. The app says outright that the myth is not true. It is only a bar to compare against for fun, and it tells you how many seconds you are under or over it.

How does the daily game work?

Each day has a game of three rounds, Search with four grids, Hold and Switch. The result card shows your span, focus score, accuracy, reaction time and streak, and the last five games appear as a line chart below it. Ebb can remind you at 20:00 if you have not played that day. The reminder is on by default and you can turn it off.

Is the game a health test?

No. The score changes with sleep, mood and practice, and the app labels it as game results from the last seconds you played. Ebb makes no health claims and is not a medical device. Please do not read a low score as a diagnosis.

How do you get a better span score?

Small habits move the number more than effort. Play at a steady speed, keep your thumb resting over the tap area instead of hovering, and ignore the urge to tap early. In Hold, slips come from tapping on a digit that looks like a 7 for a moment, or from drifting off and missing a real one. In Search, errors come from rushing the first grid.

Sleep and noise change the score too, so compare games from the same time of day. The line chart of your last five games helps here: look at the shape over a week, not at one dip.

What does the game replace?

A scrolling session asks for nothing, which is why it runs on. The game asks for a few seconds of real attention, and that small demand is the pause. It also gives the pause a point of its own: a number you can beat, so passing a gate feels like a result and not like paying a toll.

How does the game connect to the gate?

The same rounds power the gate. A 15-second pass is three Search grids with one error allowed. Longer passes add a Hold stretch and Switch items. Your daily score and your gate runs sit next to each other in the progress screens, so you can see both. Scores can also go out as duel cards.