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Visual Puzzles Visual Sequence

Which Shape Comes Next? Four Panels and One Rule

A visual sequence where a single transformation is applied at every step. The fifth panel is computed from the rule, not chosen, so exactly one of the four options can be right.

Editorial Team medium
A branded card in high-contrast indigo introducing a visual sequence puzzle with four panels and an empty fifth.

Visual sequences are the pictorial version of a number sequence, and they have the same failure mode: if the rule is not clearly the simplest one available, two answers become defensible and the puzzle falls apart.

This one is built to avoid that. A starting shape is chosen, a single transformation rule is chosen, and the rule is applied once per panel. The fifth panel is then computed rather than drawn by hand.

How the wrong answers are made

The three incorrect options are not random. Each one is a specific, recognisable mistake:

  • the previous panel repeated, which is what happens if you forget to apply the rule at all
  • the rule applied twice, which is what happens if you double-count the step
  • the rule applied backwards, which is what happens if you read the sequence in the wrong direction

Building distractors this way is deliberate. Options that are obviously wrong make a puzzle trivially easy; options that correspond to real errors make it fair and instructive, because when you pick one you learn something about where you went wrong.

The check

Before publishing, a validator replays the rule from the starting panel, confirms that every visible panel matches, computes the answer panel, and then checks that exactly one of the four options matches it. It also checks that no two options are visually identical.

If more than one option matched, the puzzle would be discarded. That is the whole reason for doing it this way round.

Have a look, commit to a letter, then open the reveal — which also states the rule in plain words.

Medium Which option completes this sequence?

A row of 4 panels of shapes followed by an empty panel, then four lettered options labelled A to D.?Which option comes next?ABCD
Generated puzzle — the answer is checked before publication. Open image
Reveal the answer

Answer B

The same sequence completed, with option B outlined in red as the correct answer.

The answer is B, because the fill cycles through the same four styles in order. Carrying that on from the fourth panel gives exactly the shape shown in option B.

Four clues, one queue, one possible order. Work it out before the reveal

A branded card in high-contrast indigo introducing a logic puzzle about working out the order of people in a queue.
Logic Puzzle

Four Clues, One Queue: Can You Work Out the Order?

A short ordering puzzle with a single provable answer. Every clue is needed, and a solver checks that only one arrangement fits before it is published.

Start it