Keeping your attention in Ink & Word
Reading is so automatic that a written colour word arrives in your head before you have even decided to look at the ink. Ink & Word is built on that small tug-of-war. Here is how to play it calmly.
Why the word gets in first
When the word and the ink agree, there is nothing to resolve and the tap is quick. When they disagree, the word you have already read has to be set aside before the ink can be named. That moment of setting aside is the whole game.
On the easy level about half of the words disagree with their ink. From medium onwards three in four do, and two more colours join, so the moment comes more often and with more choices.
Where to look
Rest your eyes on the edge of the letters or on the space just under the word. You still see the colour, but the shape of the word is a little softer.
Some players find it helps to blur their gaze slightly, as if looking through the card. Try it for one game and see whether your accuracy moves.
Hands and buttons
Keep your finger, or your mouse pointer, over the middle of the button row between taps. Every answer is then the same short move away, and you are less likely to tap the button you were already near.
On a keyboard, the number keys follow the button order from left to right. Resting four or six fingers on them turns the game into a tidy little piano.
The word-button level
At the hard level the answer buttons carry written colour names rather than patches of colour, and they are put in a new order every game. So the card is a word, and so is every button. Use your first two or three answers to learn where each colour lives; the arrangement holds until the game is over.
Pace
A wrong tap holds you for a full second. At an average of under a second per answer, that is more than one lost answer, so a steady correct tap is worth more than a hurried one. Watch the accuracy figure on the result card: if it slips below nine in ten, slow down a touch.