Free Color by Number

How to play

1. Press Play. The first picture is clipped to the board, every square showing the number of its paint, and paint 1 is picked up from the tin.
2. Tap a square with the paint’s number, or drag across a run of squares: each square with that number takes the color, and the rest are passed over. The squares still to color with the paint in hand are shaded so you can see where they are.
3. Pick another paint from the tin when you like. When a paint is used up its well gets a check mark and, unless you turn it off in Settings, the next paint with squares left is picked up for you.
4. Zoom in to read the numbers: pinch with two fingers, scroll the mouse wheel, or use Zoom in and Zoom out. Whole shows the whole picture again, and Find jumps to the nearest square still to color with the paint in hand.
5. When every square is colored the picture is finished. It goes into the gallery, and a ribbon over the tin offers the next picture. Menu opens the gallery, today’s picture, your statistics, Settings and the rules.

Controls

• Touch: tap a paint, then tap or drag across squares. Pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to move the picture, or turn on Move to move it with one finger. On a picture zoomed out too far to tap, a tap zooms in first.
• Mouse: click a paint, then click or drag across squares. The scroll wheel zooms toward the pointer, and dragging with the right button moves the picture.
• Keyboard: arrow keys move a highlighted square, Space or Enter colors it, Shift with an arrow colors as it moves. 1 to 9 and 0 pick paints 1 to 10, [ and ] step through all of them, + and − zoom, W shows the whole picture and F finds a square. Escape closes a sheet.
• Restart in the toolbar asks before it clears the picture on the board. The toolbar also has pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.

What you do

Linseed Loft Color by Number is pixel art coloring by number, set in an attic painting studio at the end of the day. A sheet of squared paper is clipped to a birch drafting board on an oak table, under a loft window that looks out over the rooftops as the sun goes down. Every square of the picture shows a number and a soft gray tone, and the paints wait in an enamel tin in front of the board, each in its own ceramic well with its number on it. Pick a paint and its squares are shaded on the picture; tap them, or drag across them, and they take the color. A square that wants a different paint stays as it is, and the card on the wall says which paint it is after, so there is nothing to undo. Clement, a Pembroke Welsh corgi in a linen painter’s smock, with half-moon brass reading glasses and a pencil behind his ear, sits in the window and keeps you company. He breathes, blinks, looks where you are working, nods when a paint is used up, raises a brow at a square that wants another color, and takes a proper look when a picture is finished. The 74 pictures are our own, drawn for this game in a muted paint box of 52 named colors (oak, linen, terracotta, sage, ink blue, brass, lamplight): still lifes from the kitchen table, flowers, gardens, a village street at dusk, animals drawn with some dignity, landscapes and the turn of the seasons.

• 74 original pixel pictures in seven collections: The kitchen table, Flowers, The garden, The village, Animals, Landscapes and The seasons. Teapots and pears, a potting shed, a bookshop window, a heron, a harbor at evening, a snowy cabin.
• Three sizes: 25 Small pictures of 24 by 24 squares, 28 Medium pictures of 24 to 40 squares a side, and 21 Large pictures of 40 to 64 squares a side, up to 4,096 squares.
• 8 to 14 paints a picture, from a box of 52 muted colors, each named in the tin (Burnt umber, Duck egg, Claret, Lamplight) and read out to screen readers.
• Tap one square or drag across many: a drag colors only the squares with the paint in hand and passes over the rest. Squares still to color with that paint are shaded, and Find takes you to the nearest one.
• Pinch, scroll or use the zoom buttons to get close, with two-finger or right-button dragging to move the picture and a Move button for one-finger moving. The numbers appear once the squares are big enough to read.
• Every picture keeps its own progress in this browser, finished pictures hang in a framed gallery, and today’s picture is the same for everyone, with a streak and a result line to copy.

Tips worth knowing

• Drag instead of tapping. Because a drag only colors squares with the paint in hand, one pass along each row for each paint colors the whole picture. In our simulation that took a median of 87 drags for a Small picture of 576 squares, and 176 drags for a Large picture of 2,304.
• Start with the paint that covers the most. In our count of the pictures, the most used paint covers 16 to 75 percent of a picture, about 31 percent in the middle one, so the progress bar moves fastest if you begin there.
• Scribble across a patch. A patch of one paint can be colored in one wandering stroke without lifting your finger, and nothing else gets painted on the way. Our pictures have a median of 63 patches in a Small picture and 195 in a Large one.
• Save the small paints for Find. In 46 of the 74 pictures at least one paint has ten squares or fewer, often single squares for an eye, a window or a highlight; pick that paint and press Find to go straight to them.
• Zoom in until the numbers show, then move rather than zoom out. Large pictures read best close up, a corner at a time, and Whole shows how far the picture has come.

Accessibility

• Everything can be played with a keyboard: arrow keys move a highlighted square, Space or Enter colors it, number keys pick paints, + and − zoom, F finds a square, and every button is reachable with Tab.
• Every paint in the tin is a button labeled with its number, its name and the squares it has left. Each colored square, each wrong square and each finished paint is read out, and moving the keyboard square reads its row, column and paint.
• Color is never the only clue: every square shows its number until it is colored, a used-up paint gets a check mark, and the card on the wall names the paint a square wants.
• Nothing is timed against you and a wrong square changes nothing. The squares for the paint in hand can be left unshaded in Settings.
• Reduced motion colors squares and shows rings without movement, keeps Clement still and leaves out the light that crosses a finished picture. Sound is optional and never needed to play.

Questions

Guides and roundups

• How to Play Color by Number: Rules and Tips
• Relaxing Games: 15 Calming Games to Unwind With
• Free Online Games for Adults: No Download

Game details

Lovely on tablets

Genre

Cozy Classic

Difficulty

Easy

Session

A Small picture in a sitting, a Large one over several, saved as you go

Inputs

Keyboard, Mouse, Touch

Devices

Desktop, Tablet, Mobile

Made by

CozyWorld

Updated

2026-10-31

A calm coloring game with no purchases, accounts, timers or penalties. The pictures are still lifes, gardens, villages, animals and landscapes.