Draw flags from memory

Flag Drawing: how to play

Draw a named flag from memory before the timer runs out, then see how closely your colours and shapes match the real one. Scores run from 0 to 1,000.

Play the daily flag Play Flag Streak

What is Flag Drawing?

Flag Drawing gives you the name of a flag and a blank white canvas. You do not see the flag itself. You have a brush, a fill bucket and ready-made shapes (line, rectangle, circle, triangle, star and crescent) to rebuild it from memory before the clock reaches zero.

There are two ways to play. The daily flag sets one flag per day for each difficulty, and you can redraw it as often as you like. Flag Streak deals a random flag every round and keeps going for as long as each drawing scores at least 800.

Modes: Daily flag and Flag Streak
Time limit: 90 seconds on Easy, 60 seconds on Hard
Maximum score: 1,000 points per drawing
Streak target: 800 points or more every round
Flags included: 57 on Easy (55 countries plus the EU and UN flags), 140 on Hard
Hint: Shows the real flag faintly, halves your score

How to play

1Choose Easy or Hard with the switch at the top before you start, because it is locked while a round is running.
2Read the flag name on the start card and press Start Challenge to begin the countdown.
3Pick a colour from the six quick colours or the colour wheel, then paint with the brush, flood an area with the fill bucket or drag out a shape.
4After placing a shape, drag it to move it or pull its handles to resize it, and use Undo to step back from a mistake.
5Press Submit when you are happy, or let the timer run out, then compare your drawing with the real flag on the results screen.

Scoring

Your drawing is compared with the real flag across the whole canvas. Each spot earns credit for how close its colour is to the real one, so a slightly wrong shade of blue still earns most of the credit.

The average match becomes a score out of 1,000. A 10% bonus is then added and the result is capped at 1,000. Finishing early gives no extra points.

Switching the hint on at any moment halves your score for that drawing, even if you hide it again. With the bonus, a hinted drawing can reach 550 at most.

In Flag Streak a score of 800 or more adds one to your streak and unlocks the next flag. Anything below 800 ends the run and the next attempt starts from zero.

Tips

Lay down the big areas first. Points come from how much of the canvas has the right colour, so correct stripes and backgrounds are worth far more than a detailed emblem.
Never use the hint in Flag Streak. A hinted drawing tops out at 550, which is below the 800 you need to continue.
Use rectangles for stripes and crosses. They give clean edges, and you can resize them afterwards to fix the proportions.
The canvas starts white, so leave white areas alone and spend your seconds on the coloured parts.
Every flag is stretched to fill the whole canvas, so take your stripes right to the edges.

What you learn

Recognising a flag is easy compared with drawing it. Working without a reference makes you recall the order of the stripes, which side the emblem sits on and how wide each band is. Seeing the real flag next to your attempt straight afterwards shows exactly what you misremembered.

The Easy list covers well-known flags from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Hard moves on to 140 less familiar ones, including many from Africa, the Caribbean, Central Asia and the Pacific.

Questions and answers

Is the daily flag the same for everyone?: Yes. The flag depends only on the date and the difficulty, and it changes at midnight in your own time zone. Easy and Hard each have their own daily flag.
Does using the hint cost points?: Yes. The hint lays a faint copy of the real flag over the canvas so you can trace it, and your final score is halved as soon as you switch it on.
Is my progress saved?: Your best Flag Streak is saved in the browser on the device you play on, separately from Outline Streak. If you are signed in, completed flag drawings and your best streak also count towards the countryball unlocks in your player profile. Daily scores are not stored.