Draw a Perfect Circle

What is Draw a Perfect Circle?

Draw a Perfect Circle is a freehand accuracy test. There is a dot in the middle of a dark slate, and your job is to draw one continuous circle around it with a finger or a mouse. When you lift off, the game measures how far every point of your line sat from the average radius and turns that into a score out of 100. It takes about four seconds to play and considerably longer to stop playing.

The reason it is harder than it looks is that a circle is the one shape with no landmarks. A square has corners to aim at and a triangle has three fixed points, but a circle asks your arm to hold a constant radius through a full rotation while your wrist, elbow and shoulder each pull it in a different direction. Most people are fine for the first half and drift badly on the way back.

How to play

1. Put your finger or cursor anywhere on the slate and start drawing.
2. Sweep one continuous loop all the way around the centre dot.
3. Finish where you started. Ends that do not meet cost you points.
4. Lift off to score. Your line is repainted so you can see where it went wrong.

Reading your result

Most circle tests hand you a number and leave you to guess what it meant. This one recolours your actual line the moment you release. Stretches that sat on the ideal radius turn green, stretches that started drifting turn amber, and the parts that went badly wide or badly tight turn red. A dashed ring shows the circle you were really drawing, so the gap between your line and that ring is the error made visible.

Underneath the score you get one specific note about the biggest problem, such as bulging outward at the upper left or cutting inward at the bottom. That is the part worth acting on, because freehand error is almost never spread evenly. It clusters in the one arc where your wrist ran out of travel.

Tips for a better score

• Move from the elbow or shoulder, not the wrist. The wrist has a limited arc and it is the reason most circles come out as eggs.
• Go faster than feels comfortable. Slow careful drawing introduces more wobble, not less. A confident sweep in under a second usually beats a cautious three-second one.
• Keep your speed constant. Slowing down on the far side is the most common cause of a flat edge.
• Watch the dot, not your finger. Fixing your eyes on the centre helps your hand hold the radius, the same way looking ahead keeps you cycling straight.
• Draw bigger. A large circle spreads the same absolute error over a longer line, so it scores better than a small one.

Guide ring, ghost and what counts as a good score

Two aids sit above the slate and both remember your preference. The guide ring puts a faint dashed target on the board to practise against, and the ghost draws your personal best in amber underneath your new attempt so you are racing yourself rather than an abstract number. Turn both off when you want a clean test.

On scoring, anything above 72 percent is a genuinely good freehand circle and puts you in roughly the top quarter. Above 81 percent is top ten, above 90 percent is top three, and 94 or higher is the top one percent. Most first attempts land somewhere between 50 and 60 percent. Your best score is kept in your browser, not on a server, and no account is needed.