How to Master Shape Corners
TLDR: Shape Corners draws one figure and asks how many corners it has. Most rounds are won by recognition, not counting: learn the named shapes and their vertex counts once. Keep three traps in mind, because they catch almost everybody. The star has ten corners, the cross has twelve, and the circle has none.
What is Shape Corners?
One figure is drawn on screen. You pick how many corners it has from a short row of numbers. A correct answer grows the streak. A wrong one ends the run.
A corner, or vertex, is any point where two sides meet. The game counts every one of them, including the corners that point inward.
Which shapes appear, and how many corners do they have?
Most rounds use a named shape. Learn the table once and those rounds cost you no thought at all.
The regular polygons run in order: triangle 3, square 4, pentagon 5, hexagon 6, heptagon 7, octagon 8, nonagon 9, decagon 10.
The quadrilateral family all have 4: rhombus, trapezoid, parallelogram and kite. They look different and they count the same.
The curved shapes are the ones people hesitate over. A circle has 0 corners. A semicircle has 2, where the flat base meets the arc. A crescent has 2, at its two tips.
The compound outlines are where the game gets its difficulty. An arrow has 7. A star has 10. A cross has 12.
The three that decide most runs. Star 10, cross 12, arrow 7. Every other shape in the game is either a plain polygon you can name or a curve with 0 or 2 corners. Hold these three and the named rounds are almost free.
Why does the star trip everybody up?
Because you see five points and your hand reaches for the five. The five-pointed star is drawn with five outer points and five inner corners between them, and both kinds are corners where two sides meet. Five plus five is ten.
The cross is the same mistake in a different costume. A plus-shaped cross has four outward corners at the ends of the arms and eight inner corners where the arms join the middle. Four plus eight is twelve.
Caution. Inner corners count. Any point where two straight sides meet is a vertex, whether it points out of the shape or into it. Every wrong option in a star round is built around the assumption that you will forget them.
Tip. On a star or a cross, count the outer corners first, then count the inner ones, then add. Counting around the outline in one pass is where people lose their place. Two small counts beat one long one.
How do you count an irregular outline?
At higher difficulty the game stops using named shapes and draws a generated outline instead: asymmetric, with no name to recall and no symmetry to lean on. Here you really do have to count, and the method matters.
Walk the outline once, in one direction. Pick the topmost corner as your start. Go clockwise. Count each corner as you arrive at it and stop when you return to the start. Never jump across the shape to a corner that looks interesting, because that is how a corner gets counted twice or missed.
Or split it in half. Draw an imaginary vertical line through the middle of the figure. Count the corners on the left, count the corners on the right, and add. Two counts of four are far more reliable than one count of eight, and if the number feels wrong you only have to redo one half.
Tip. A long, nearly straight edge with a slight bend in the middle is still two sides and one corner. Look along each edge rather than at the shape as a whole. Shallow corners are the ones an irregular outline hides.
Why do the options sit so close together?
Because the game removes the guess on purpose. Easy rounds offer numbers that are clearly far apart, so recognising the shape is enough. As difficulty climbs, more options appear and they sit nearer the right answer, so 9, 10 and 11 can all be on the screen at once.
That is the signal to slow down. When the options are adjacent numbers, the round is testing your count, not your recall.
Tip. Look at the option row before you count. If the numbers are spread out, name the shape and answer. If they are consecutive, use one of the two counting methods above. The option row tells you which kind of round you are in.
A short practice routine
The routine. Two minutes on easy to fix the named-shape table in place. Five minutes at your normal level, saying the shape’s name to yourself before you answer. Then a few rounds one step higher, where irregular outlines appear, practising the clockwise walk. Stop while you are still counting carefully, because a tired count is a guess.
Where does this help outside the game?
Counting corners is how children first learn to tell polygons apart, and the vocabulary stays useful. A pentagon has five corners, a decagon has ten, a circle has none. The habit underneath it is more general: when you have to count things that are laid out in front of you, pick an order and keep to it.
For more of the same skill, try Name the Shape for shape recognition, Perfect Shape for drawing accuracy, and Spatial Rotation for mental rotation.
Shape Corners
One shape appears · a triangle, hexagon, star or arrow · and you pick how many corners it has. Counting and geometry, one tap at a time
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