TL;DR: A good color game should score “how similar it looks,” not just how close the RGB numbers are. OKLab is designed to track human perception more evenly than raw RGB.
When you play a color matching game, you are really asking a perception question: do these two colors look the same to me? That sounds simple, but computer color numbers don’t line up with your eyes. Two colors can be close in RGB yet feel visibly different, especially in dark blues and near-neutral grays.
ΔE is a family of formulas that try to measure perceptual difference. In plain language: smaller ΔE means two colors are harder to tell apart; larger ΔE means they are easier to tell apart. Many design and print workflows use ΔE as a “difference meter” for quality control.
OKLab (and its polar form OKLCH) is a modern color space built so equal numeric steps tend to feel more uniform to humans. That makes it a strong default for games: it keeps scoring fair across hues instead of favoring certain regions of the color wheel.
In Dialed’s color modes, we use an OKLab-based distance (ΔE-like) and then map that distance to a 0–100 score per round. The curve is intentionally not linear: tiny visual differences should still score high (so near-matches feel rewarding), while clearly wrong guesses drop fast (so it stays competitive).
A practical way to use the score: treat it like darts. Don’t obsess over one “perfect” match. Track whether your average improves over a week on the same device. If you change screens, brightness, or night mode, you changed the ruler.
If you want the most direct “match from memory” challenge, play this mode: Color Memory Game.
If you want a naming/intuition challenge (“what does this color name look like?”), try this one: Color Guesser.
Entertainment only — not a medical vision test. Lighting and display calibration affect results.