Game-Based Assessments
A game-based assessment swaps the question paper for short games: popping balloons, memorising grids, routing pipes, working through a simulated case. Underneath, each vendor is measuring something different, and scoring it differently.
Below is every game-based vendor we simulate, 9 in all, with what its games measure, how the result reaches the employer and what preparation is worth doing. Between them they cover 57 games, 13 of which you can play free.
Find your vendor
Does the game have a right answer?
This is the question that decides how to prepare. Of the 57 games on this page, 50 have a correct answer or a better score: memory spans, reasoning puzzles, numerical grids. The other 7 describe you, such as how much risk you take with a balloon or how you split money with a stranger, and the vendor reads the result against a role rather than ranking it.
Each game list below marks the ones with no right answer. Why those resist practice, and what practice does buy, is covered in game-based vs traditional assessments.
Vendor by vendor
Arctic Shores
Arctic Shores, sometimes called a task-based or behaviour-based assessment
- What it measures
- Behavioural traits and cognitive skills inferred from how you play: risk appetite on Balloon, focus and inhibition on Arrows, working memory on Sequence, reasoning on Order and Patterns.
- How it is scored
- There is no pass mark. Arctic Shores builds a profile of how you played, and the employer compares it with what it wants for that particular role, so the same result can suit one job and not another.
- How to prepare
- Learn each mechanic so the first minute is not spent finding the controls. On the tasks with no right answer, such as Balloon, play the way you naturally would rather than the way you imagine the employer wants.
13 games to practise
- BalloonNo right answer5-7 minutesFree
- Arrows4-6 minutesFree
- Sequence4-6 minutesFree
- Expressions3-4 minutes
- Order15 minutes
- Token Search6-8 minutes
- Power Generator5-7 minutes
- Security Door6-8 minutes
- Balance10 minutes
- Team Sales5-7 minutes
- Tickets6-8 minutes
- Patterns17 minutes
- Prediction5-7 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: Airbus, BDO, Capita, EDF Energy. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Pymetrics
Pymetrics, now part of Harver
- What it measures
- Short games adapted from cognitive science experiments: risk on Balloon, trust and fairness on the two Money Exchange games, effort on Hard or Easy, plus memory, attention, planning and emotion recognition.
- How it is scored
- Pymetrics' own published audit describes its games as "not meant to be won or lost". The social and risk games place you on a spectrum with no good end, and the result is a fit against a role rather than a rank against other candidates.
- How to prepare
- Practise the cognitive games, which do have right answers: Digits Memory, Stop, Arrows and Tower reward accuracy and steady pacing. For the rest, know the rules in advance so you are not making decisions while still reading them.
12 games to practise
- BalloonNo right answer2-3 minutes
- Tower5-8 minutes
- Money Exchange INo right answer2-3 minutes
- Money Exchange IINo right answer2-3 minutes
- Keypress1-2 minutesFree
- Hard or Easy TaskNo right answer2-3 minutes
- Digits Memory2-3 minutesFree
- Stop2-3 minutes
- Arrows2-3 minutes
- Lengths1-2 minutes
- Cards4-5 minutes
- Faces1-2 minutesFree
Employers we hold evidence for: Colgate-Palmolive, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Unilever. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Aon / cut-e
Aon (cut-e) smartPredict: switchChallenge, gridChallenge, digitChallenge, gapChallenge
- What it measures
- Reasoning and memory presented as puzzles: deductive logic in switchChallenge, spatial working memory under interference in gridChallenge, numerical agility in digitChallenge and deduction in a shape grid in gapChallenge.
- How it is scored
- Every challenge has right answers and runs for about six minutes. gridChallenge and digitChallenge adapt their difficulty as you go, so items getting harder usually means you are doing well rather than badly.
- How to prepare
- Learn the rule of each challenge before a clock is running: track positions rather than symbols in switchChallenge, hold the grid sequence as a shape, and start digitChallenge from the most constrained equation.
4 games to practise
- switchChallenge (Deductive Logic)6 minutes
- gridChallenge (Spatial Memory)6 minutes
- digitChallenge (Numerical Agility)6 minutes
- gapChallenge (Deductive Reasoning)6 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: BAE Systems, KLM, Procter & Gamble, Rolls-Royce. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
HireVue
HireVue Assessments, the game-based tests rather than the HireVue video interview
- What it measures
- Numerical reasoning, pattern matching, visual attention, planning, working memory and emotion recognition, in short games that move you up or down a ladder of levels.
- How it is scored
- Recruiters see an overall score and competency scores, stack-ranked against other candidates. HireVue norms locally, so you are compared with candidates in your own country or region. The cut-off is set by the employer and is not published.
- How to prepare
- In HireVue’s published research, the final level reached on Numerosity and the total levels on Shapedance were the two most important inputs to the cognitive score. Steady accuracy that keeps you climbing beats speed that drops you back a level.
8 games to practise
- Numerosity3 minutesFree
- Shapedance3.3 minutesFree
- Singularity3 minutes
- Pathfinder5 minutes
- Digitspan3 minutes
- Flashback3 minutes
- Puzzle Picture7 minutes
- E-Motions4 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: American Electric Power (AEP), AT&T, Capital One, CVS Health. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
McKinsey Solve
McKinsey Solve, used only by McKinsey
- What it measures
- Problem solving inside simulated scenarios: finding and analysing data in Redrock, optimising under constraints in Sea Wolf and judgement on a changing project in Sustainable Futures Lab.
- How it is scored
- The original design, described in a peer-reviewed paper co-written with McKinsey, scored both your answers and your process from click and timing data, mapped onto five constructs: critical thinking, decision-making, metacognition, situational awareness and systems thinking. How the current modules weight process against answers is not published.
- How to prepare
- The arithmetic is simple and the time pressure is the test. Practise pulling only the figures that answer the question from a noisy screen, and work Sea Wolf methodically rather than by trial and error.
6 games to practise
- Redrock Investigation8 minutesFree
- Redrock Analysis8 minutes
- Redrock Report6 minutes
- Redrock Cases13 minutes
- Sea Wolf Ocean Treatment30 minutes
- Sustainable Futures Lab20 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: McKinsey & Company. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Revelian (RCAT & Cognify)
Cognify and Emotify, from Revelian (now part of Criteria)
- What it measures
- Problem solving, spatial reasoning, numerical speed and verbal accuracy in short mini-games. Emotify is a separate emotional intelligence assessment built on reading facial expressions.
- How it is scored
- Cognify is scored as a cognitive assessment and has no pass mark of its own. It comes in a three-game global version of about ten minutes and a six-game Asia-Pacific version of about twenty; our six games follow the longer one.
- How to prepare
- Know which games want patience and which want pace. Short Cuts, Grid Lock and Resemble reward working out the whole answer before you move; Numbubbles and Tally Up have hidden timers and punish deliberation.
7 games to practise
- Short Cuts6-8 minutes
- Grid Lock6-8 minutes
- Resemble10 minutesFree
- Numbubbles5 minutes
- Tally Up5-6 minutes
- Proof It5-6 minutes
- Emotify4 minutesFree
Employers we hold evidence for: Australian Defence Force. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Test Partnership
MindmetriQ, from Test Partnership
- What it measures
- Numerical, verbal and logical reasoning in mobile-first puzzles: capturing the highest total on a number grid, sorting word pairs, routing a pipe around obstacles.
- How it is scored
- Each game adapts item by item and gives every question its own short clock. Reports show a percentile and a sten per game against a named norm group (graduates and professionals, non-graduate staff, or apprentices and school leavers), plus an overall combined score.
- How to prepare
- There is no calculator by design. Net the Numbers grids contain negative numbers, so the greedy pick is often wrong; check signs before you capture. On Pipe Puzzle, plan the route before you move anything, because the supply of pipes is limited.
3 games to practise
- MindmetriQ Net the Numbers4-6 minutesFree
- MindmetriQ Link Swipe4-6 minutes
- MindmetriQ Pipe Puzzle4-6 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: Cadent Gas, DAC Beachcroft, EDF Energy, Evelyn Partners. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
AssessFirst
AssessFirst BRAIN and SWIPE
- What it measures
- BRAIN measures general reasoning by having you build the missing figure in a sequence from pieces. SWIPE is a personality questionnaire answered as picture pairs rather than statements.
- How it is scored
- Both report on a 1 to 10 scale against a reference population of several hundred thousand profiles, where 1 is the lowest 2% and 10 the highest 2%. BRAIN reports your speed separately rather than folding it into the score. SWIPE has no good or bad scores.
- How to prepare
- BRAIN adapts to you, allows about three minutes a sequence and has a Pass button. Passing is recorded, and frequent skipping is one of the risk factors its report names, so use it for genuine dead ends only.
2 games to practise
- BRAIN10 minutesFree
- SWIPENo right answer5 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: AXA, LCL, SNCF Réseau. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Cappfinity
Cappfinity strengths assessments, often described as immersive
- What it measures
- Strengths rather than competencies: which kinds of work energise you, judged through workplace scenarios and quick-fire statements inside a job simulation, often alongside numerical and verbal tests.
- How it is scored
- Cappfinity records how quickly and confidently you answer as well as what you choose, on the view that a fast, decisive answer signals a real preference. The scenario items are keyed against a strengths framework.
- How to prepare
- Read the employer’s published values or strengths framework first, because the scenario key is built from it. Then answer at a natural pace: deliberating over the answer that looks best weakens the very signal being measured.
2 games to practise
- Strengths-Based Situational Judgement20 minutes
- Strengths ProfileNo right answer10 minutes
Employers we hold evidence for: AtkinsRéalis, Deloitte, EY (Ernst & Young), KPMG. Each guide says which of the vendor's tests that employer sets.
Preparing for any game-based assessment
- 1
Work out which vendor sent it
The sender domain and the names of the games in the invitation usually settle it. If they do not, the employer guide or our provider checklist will.
Which assessment provider am I taking? - 2
Sort the games with right answers from the ones without
Memory, reasoning and numerical games have correct answers, and practice pays off in accuracy and pacing. Risk, trust and personality games describe you, so the only useful preparation is knowing the rules.
Game-based vs traditional assessments - 3
Learn the mechanics before a clock is running
A first attempt spends its time on the controls that a practised attempt spends on the problem. Play each game once untimed in your head: what is on screen, what you press, what ends a round.
- 4
Set the session up properly
One sitting, a charged device, a stable connection and no notifications. If you have a condition that affects timed or visual tasks, ask for an adjustment before you start, not after.
Assessment adjustments and neurodiversity
Play the games before the real one
Sign up free to play 13 of the games on this page in full, then unlock the vendor your employer uses.
Get started freeOther kinds of test
Many employers pair a game-based stage with a conventional test or an interview.
Psychometric tests
Ability tests and personality questionnaires from SHL, Aon, Saville and the other UK publishers.
Pre-employment tests
The US hiring tests: CCAT, Wonderlic, Predictive Index, Harver and the federal exams.
Cognitive ability tests
The conventional format most game-based reasoning tasks are standing in for.
Video interviews
One-way recorded interview practice, for the HireVue stage that often follows the games.
Frequently asked questions
Can you fail a game-based assessment?
It depends on the vendor. Aon, HireVue, MindmetriQ and AssessFirst BRAIN games have right answers, and the employer sets a cut-off on the result. Arctic Shores and Pymetrics compare your profile with the one the employer wants for the role, so there is no universal pass mark, but the employer still decides who goes through.
Does practice help with game-based assessments?
For the games with right answers, yes, in the same way it helps with any timed reasoning test: you stop spending time on the rules and start spending it on the problem. For the games that describe your risk appetite or working style, practice only removes the surprise, and trying to push a score in a particular direction is guesswork about what the employer wants.
Are game-based assessments timed?
Most are, in different ways. Each Aon smartPredict challenge runs for about six minutes, MindmetriQ puts a short clock on every question, AssessFirst BRAIN allows up to three minutes a sequence, and two of the Cognify games run on hidden timers.
Is a HireVue game the same as a HireVue interview?
No. HireVue sells both a video interview and a separate set of game-based assessments, and an employer can use either or both. The invitation usually says which; our guide on telling them apart covers the clues.
Which employers use game-based assessments?
Each vendor section above lists the employers our guides hold evidence for, but the lists are not exhaustive and an employer can change vendor between years. The employer guides say which test each company uses and at which stage.
Can I take a game-based assessment on my phone?
Some are built for it. Test Partnership says MindmetriQ was designed from the ground up for smaller screens, and Revelian has listed Cognify and Emotify as the exceptions to its desktop-only rule. For anything else, follow the device guidance in your invitation, because some games are hard to play on a small screen even when they load.