MEM/STACK

Hold the numbers. The numbers do not hold still.

Every run starts at level 1 on the same schedule. Difficulty is a simulated number, not a hand-set one — see .

How it works

A few named slots hold numbers. You see them once. Then instructions rewrite them, one at a time, and you must keep up in your head. At the end you are asked about the result — with nothing on screen.

The loop

  1. See the slots — names above values, always in the same positions.
  2. Track each instruction as it flashes. Nothing is shown twice.
  3. Answer one to three questions against a blank screen.
  4. Review the replay, which shows you exactly where you diverged.

A wrong answer — or running out of time — costs one strike, however many questions you missed in that round. Three strikes end the run. Failing does not send you backwards: the same level runs again with freshly generated instructions, because replaying the identical round would just test whether you memorised it.

Level 1 is a single instruction over three slots. It stays that way for level 2, goes to two instructions for levels 3 and 4, and reaches three at level 5. New vocabulary arrives one idea at a time — swaps, then largest and smallest, then conditions — and the first time you meet anything new, it appears in the simplest possible sentence.

Rules worth knowing before they cost you

Reads happen before writes
Every instruction looks at the state as it was when the instruction began, then applies all its changes at once. "Everyone becomes the total" uses the total from before anyone changed.
…except after "then"
In a two-part instruction, the second part sees what the first part did. That is the whole point of "then".
The difference cascade
Each slot becomes the distance between it and the slot to its right; the last slot is untouched. All of it computed from the state before the cascade ran. 8 12 3 becomes 4 9 3.
The middle value
With an even number of slots there are two middles. It is always the lower one.
Rotating
"Rotate every value right" moves each value one position to the right; the last wraps around to the front. The positions never move — the values do.
Ties never happen
You will never be asked which slot is largest when two are tied, or to divide something that does not divide. The generator checks the real state and regenerates instead of asking you to adjudicate.

Scoring

Your score is the highest level you passed. Ties break on strikes remaining, then on speed. Answering inside par scores full speed; past par it decays, and well past it the question closes.

The difficulty model

No level here was authored. Each one is generated, simulated, and kept only if its predicted difficulty lands within 10% of the target for that level.

What difficulty is

You are modelled as a store plus a processor. The store holds items: slot values, half-finished arithmetic, the question you are currently holding. Mistakes happen only at accesses — the moments you reach into the store or compute something. Each access carries a failure probability that rises with exactly three things:

  • Load — how many items you are holding at once.
  • Age — how long since you last touched the one you need.
  • Tempo — how little time you are given.

Nothing else counts. Every instruction and every question compiles to a trace of primitive events, the trace is priced, and the round's total is a single number: strain. Your predicted chance of getting the round right is e−strain.

Why that is better than a difficulty setting

Because it is falsifiable. The model claims a scan late in a round costs more than the same scan early, that a global operation is secretly rehearsal, and that rotating the slots makes every value read as stale. Those are predictions, and the game records enough to check them. If the numbers disagree with players, the numbers are wrong.

A note on the constants

Settings

Nothing here changes reading time, processing time, gaps, or par. Difficulty is not configurable inside a scored run.

Practice

Practice mode is unscored and lets you pick a level and slow the tempo.

Your data

Practice

Unscored. Strikes still end the session, but nothing is recorded.

Level1

Replay

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