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Hold and drag your crayon through the numbered dots in order across a page bigger than the screen, and finish the outline to make the picture flood with colour and come alive.
Mochi Trace is a cozy, no-fail connect-the-dots colouring game. Each level lays out one cute picture as a set of numbered dots on a big paper page. Press and hold anywhere and a crayon appears at dot 1; drag your finger or mouse and the crayon follows. When the pen comes near the next dot in the sequence, the line snaps to it and locks that segment - so you draw the outline one certain step at a time, 1 to 2 to 3 and on around, until the last dot closes the shape.
Because the drawing surface is larger than the screen, the camera gently follows your crayon as you trace, panning across the page so the next dots come into view as you go. You can never connect the dots in the wrong order: the line only ever responds to the correct next dot, and everything else - later dots, and the decoy dots that appear in harder levels - is politely ignored until it is that dot's turn. If you drift off course the line just waits for you; there is nothing to lose and no way to make a mistake.
The moment the outline closes, the picture floods with colour from the lines and comes alive - the star winks, the fish wiggles, the balloon bobs, the cat blinks - with a burst of confetti and a soft chime. That celebration is the whole reward; completing any level always awards three stars. There are no hearts, no timer and no scoring, just the calm loop of tracing a shape and watching it wake up.
Twenty hand-built pictures ramp the same single gesture: more dots and bigger pages that pan further, curved connecting lines for rounder shapes, two-part pictures where the pen lifts for a second stroke, hidden numbers where only the next dot glows, two-colour fills, decoy dots you learn to skip, and glow-in-the-dark night pages. Clear all twenty and Endless mode keeps going, generating fresh drawings from the shape library with every twist switched on and the dot count and decoys climbing, each page seeded so it always differs.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Press and hold | Put the crayon down on the page and start drawing |
| Drag while holding | Move the crayon toward the next numbered dot |
| Reach the next dot | The line snaps on and locks that segment automatically |
| Let go | Lift the crayon to pause - press and hold again to carry on |
| Finish the last dot | The outline closes, floods with colour and comes alive |
| Space or Enter | Go to the next picture from the finish card |
| Settings (gear) | Sound toggle, level select, and the how-to-play demo |
Every child knows the connect-the-dots page from the back of a placemat: a scatter of numbered dots that hides a picture until your pencil links them in order. Mochi Trace is that page, but the page has grown. The drawing surface is larger than the screen, so when you press your crayon down and start pulling it from dot to dot, the view slides with you - the camera drifts to keep your pen near the middle while the far dots wait out past the edges. That one change turns a static worksheet into a little journey. You are not looking at the whole picture and filling it in; you are travelling across it, discovering the shape one segment at a time, the way you would if a real colouring book were spread out too big to see all at once.
The single gesture is hold-and-drag, and it is impossible to get wrong. Your crayon follows your finger freely, but the drawn line only ever cares about one thing: the next dot in the sequence. Wander off toward dot seven when dot three is next and nothing happens - the line simply waits, trailing after your finger, until you bring it near the correct dot, at which point that segment snaps into place and locks with a soft click. You can't connect out of order, you can't skip ahead, and you can't draw a wrong line. For a four-year-old still learning their numbers this is quietly educational; for anyone older it is the pleasant, low-stakes rhythm of a task that cannot be failed, each lock a tiny, certain reward.
What keeps twenty of these from feeling identical is a slow parade of gentle twists on the same one move. Early pictures are small, with a handful of dots sitting close together. Then the pictures grow and the camera has further to roam. Some outlines start to curve, the connecting line bowing into smooth arcs so a heart or a snail comes out round instead of jagged. Numbers begin to fade until only the next dot glows and you follow the light. Decoy dots appear near the path - tempting, unnumbered, and correctly ignored. Late pages darken into glow-in-the-dark night, your crayon and its trail lit like a sparkler, and the final drawing folds every idea together across a picture too big to hold in one glance.
The real payoff is the moment the last dot connects. The outline snaps shut, colour floods in from the lines, and the creature you have been tracing wakes up - the star blinks and winks, the fish wiggles, the balloon bobs, confetti bursts, and a happy little chime plays. There is no timer, no score, no way to lose; finishing always lights all three stars and simply opens the next page. Mochi Trace is built for the cosy end of the play spectrum, the quiet ten minutes before bed where the point is not to win but to make something appear - a whole colouring book's worth of pictures, each one hiding just past the edge of the screen until your crayon goes and finds it.
Press and hold anywhere and a crayon appears at dot number 1. Keep holding and drag your finger or mouse toward dot 2; when the line reaches it, that segment snaps on and locks. Carry on through the numbers in order until the last dot closes the outline and the picture comes alive. That's the whole game - one hold-and-drag gesture.
No, and that's on purpose. The drawn line only ever responds to the next dot in the sequence. If you drag toward a later dot, or toward one of the decoy dots in the harder levels, nothing happens - the line just trails after your finger and waits until you bring it near the correct next dot. You cannot draw a wrong line.
The drawing page is larger than the screen, so the camera gently follows your crayon and pans across the page as you trace. It keeps your pen near the middle and slides the next dots into view. Bigger pictures pan further; small early pictures fit on the screen and the view barely moves.
Never. There are no hearts, no timer and no scoring in Mochi Trace. If you drift off course the line simply waits for you. Finishing a picture always awards all three stars and opens the next one - the game is meant to be a calm, relaxing draw, not a challenge.
They're the gentle difficulty twists. From about level 11 the numbers fade so that only the next dot you need glows, and you follow the light instead of reading every number. From about level 15 extra unnumbered decoy dots appear near the path - they never snap on, so you just learn to skip them and stay on the numbered route.
The outline snaps closed, colour floods in from the lines, and the creature you traced comes alive - it blinks, bobs or wiggles, confetti bursts and a happy chime plays. A finish card then shows three stars and a Next button to open the following page. The celebration is the point of the whole game.
Yes - Endless mode. It generates a fresh picture for every level past 20 by picking from the shape library, with every twist switched on from the first endless page: curves, hidden numbers, decoys and night. The dot count and the number of decoys climb the further you go, and each level number seeds its own drawing so no two pages are the same.
Anime Mochi is a small independent studio making free, original browser games by hand in HTML5, JavaScript, and Canvas.