How Find The Orb Puzzles Are Made: Physics, Rendering and Fair Play
Every Find The Orb puzzle starts as a physics simulation rather than a hand-drawn picture. This guide explains how the puzzles are made and how we keep the game fair.
Step 1: Dropping the orbs
We create a rectangular pit and drop hundreds of glossy orbs into it. A physics engine decides how they fall, bounce and settle, so each puzzle has a different pile. Easy puzzles use a few hundred orbs. Harder puzzles use more and smaller orbs, so that around a thousand are visible on the surface.
Step 2: Giving every orb a flag
Each orb is wrapped with a flag from a pool of nations. We choose one orb on the surface to carry the flag you have to find, turn it towards the camera at a random angle, and fill the rest of the pile with other flags. Flags that look too similar to the target are filtered out using a colour comparison, so you are never asked to tell two almost identical flags apart.
Step 3: Rendering the picture
The pile is photographed by a virtual camera using a 3D renderer, with real lighting, shadows and reflections. Harder puzzles are rendered at a higher resolution so that the flags stay sharp when you zoom in.
Step 4: Choosing a fair position
The target is always placed inside the pile, away from the edges. Orbs at the edge are easy to spot against the plain background, which would make a puzzle easier than its rating.
Step 5: Keeping the answer secret
The position of the target is stored on our server and is never sent to your device while you are playing. When you tap, your tap is checked on the server, and your time is measured on the server as well. That means nobody can read the answer from the page, and the leaderboard stays fair.
Difficulty levels
Puzzles are rated Easy, Medium, Hard or Impossible. The rating reflects the number of visible orbs, how small they look and how much zooming you need. A new puzzle unlocks every day at midnight UK time.
If you have ideas for puzzle themes or spot a problem, tell us through the contact page.