How to play
Tap or click each circle before it shrinks away. Score as many points as you can in 30 seconds, then tap to play again.
About Target Tap
Target Tap is about as simple as a game gets, and that is exactly why it works. Red circles appear on a dark screen, each one starts shrinking the moment it arrives, and your job is to tap it before it disappears. You have thirty seconds. That is the whole game, and it is very hard to play only once.
How a round goes
A new circle shows up roughly every half second, and up to five can be on screen together. Each one lasts about a second and a half before it shrinks to nothing, so you never have time to admire your work. Every circle you hit is worth one point. The timer in the top corner counts down from thirty, and when it reaches zero your final score sits in the middle of the screen until you tap to go again.
There are no levels, no power-ups and no lives to lose. A missed circle costs you nothing except the point you could have had. That makes Target Tap a pure test of how quickly your eyes can find something and how quickly your hand can get there.
Getting a better score
The first thing most people do is chase whichever circle appeared last. Try the opposite. The oldest circle on screen is the one about to vanish, so go for the smallest target first and leave the big fresh ones for a moment later. It feels wrong for a round or two, then your score jumps.
Keep your hand near the middle of the screen between taps. Circles can appear anywhere, and starting from the centre means the longest trip is only half the screen. On a phone, two thumbs beat one finger, with each thumb looking after its own side. On a computer, a mouse is usually faster than a trackpad, and it helps to make the browser window a little smaller so the pointer has less ground to cover.
Do not tap wildly. A tap on empty space does not cost points, but it does cost time, and in a thirty-second game time is all you have. Accurate and steady beats frantic.
What counts as a good score
Since a circle appears about twice a second, the ceiling for a round is somewhere near sixty. Nobody gets all of them. Most players land in the twenties on their first few tries and creep into the thirties once the oldest-first habit sinks in. Forty or more means your reactions are properly sharp, or that you have been playing for longer than you meant to.
Who it suits
Target Tap is a good warm-up before a longer game, and a handy way to fill a minute while the kettle boils. It is also a fair contest between people of different ages, because there are no rules to learn and nothing to remember. Pass the phone around, take one turn each, and the highest number wins.
The game runs in your browser on phones, tablets and computers. There is nothing to install and no account to make, and a fresh round is always one tap away. If you enjoy it, Reflex Test and Whack a Mole scratch a very similar itch.