The Shutter Spot
Spot the difference, sharpen your eyes.
The Shutter Spot is a spot-the-difference game that takes you around the world. Each photo appears twice side by side, and five small details have been changed in one copy. Your trip runs through 27 cities, from New York and Paris to Seoul and Istanbul, with a cheerful little green bird along for the ride.
Game overview
What is The Shutter Spot?
Every photo has its own timer, and in regular stages each correct find adds eight seconds back. A stage is five photos in a row, and starting one costs a camera that you get back when you clear it. Each city also has four Landmark stages with famous sights and seven differences to find, and collecting all four earns a gift.
At a glance
- Compare the two photos and tap where they differ.
- Each correct tap adds a little time. Find all five to finish the photo.
- Clear five photos in a row to complete a stage and get your camera back.
- Stuck on a tricky spot? Boosters and items can help you find it.
How a stage works
The Shutter Spot is played in landscape. Two copies of the same photo sit side by side with a timer bar between them, and one of them has been quietly edited. Tap a difference on either photo and a SPOT tag pins it on both. A regular photo hides five differences, and the little film rolls at the bottom left tick off each one you find.
A stage is a run of five photos, shown as five small picture icons at the top of the screen. Every photo gets its own timer: 40 seconds in most cities, with extra time in New York, where stage 1 gives you 78 seconds per photo and the allowance shrinks to 42 by stage 20. A correct tap gives eight seconds back. A wrong tap costs six seconds and breaks your combo, so guessing is expensive.
Each photo has more possible differences than the five it shows, usually around ten, and the game picks five at random. If you replay a stage, some of the differences will be in new places, which keeps old photos from turning into a memory test.
Controls
Tap the spot that looks different. It does not matter whether you tap the left photo or the right one.
Tap the magnifying glass to use a hint. It circles one of the differences you have not found yet.
Tap the clock to use a freeze, which stops the timer for 20 seconds.
The pause button sits at the bottom right. There is no pinch to zoom, so the photos are always shown at full width.
Cameras, stars and continues
Starting a stage costs one camera. Clear all five photos and you get it back; fail or quit and it is gone. You hold up to five cameras, and one comes back every ten minutes. If the clock runs out on a photo, you can watch an ad or spend gems to refill the timer and keep going, but only a limited number of times.
Finding differences within five seconds of each other builds a combo, and each find in a combo is worth 100 points times the combo count. Your total decides whether you leave with one, two or three stars, and those stars matter: each city has 20 stages and 60 stars to earn, and 45 stars open the next city for free. With 35 stars you can open it by watching one ad, and below that it costs gems.
Cities and landmarks
Your trip covers 27 cities, starting in New York and moving on to Hawaii, Paris, Sydney, Prague, Seoul, London, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and many more. That adds up to 540 stages and more than 2,700 street and travel photos. New York is built into the app. Every other city downloads its photos once, about 20 to 25 MB, the first time you open it.
Every city also has four Landmark stages, one after each group of five stages. A Landmark opens once you clear the five stages before it, and you need three stars on all five of them to take it on. Landmark photos are famous sights such as the Statue of Liberty, they hide seven differences instead of five, and they give 60 seconds with no time back for correct taps. Beat one and its model is added to your city map. Collect all four in a city and you get to pick one of four suitcases with a gift of items inside.
Items and boosters
Hint and freeze are used during a photo. Before a stage you can also pick boosters: Combo Time stretches the combo window from five to eight seconds, Shield lets you make three wrong taps without losing any time, and Extra Time adds eight seconds at the start. Items are free on stage 1, a seven day login gift hands out a few more, and the rest come from gems.
Tips for your first cities
Split each photo into a top half and a bottom half and compare one half at a time. Most missed differences hide at the edges, on signs, windows and small objects on the road.
A wrong tap costs six seconds, almost as much as a correct tap gives back. If you are not sure, keep looking for a second or two before you tap.
Once you spot one difference, look near it for the next. Five seconds is enough to chain two or three finds, and combos are what push a stage to three stars.
The first four differences are usually the easy part. A hint is worth the most when one tiny change is all that stands between you and the end of the photo.
Landmarks need three stars on the five stages before them, and the next city opens for free at 45 stars. Replaying an early stage is often faster than paying for a ticket, and the differences will be partly new.
Why players come back
Features
- 27 cities and 540 stages with more than 2,700 photos
- Four Landmark stages in every city, with a gift for collecting all four
- Differences change on replay, simple enough for the whole family
- Available on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon and Facebook
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Is The Shutter Spot free?
Yes. It is free to download and play. It shows ads and offers optional gem packs and items, and you can clear every city without paying.
Why is the name different in the stores?
On Google Play the game is listed as Shutter Spot: Find Differences, and on the App Store as 5 Differences : Spot It. Both are this game.
Do I need an internet connection?
You need one the first time you open each city after New York, because its photos are downloaded then. Stage progress is saved on your device and synced with our server.
Are the differences always the same?
No. Each photo has a larger set of possible differences and five are picked at random each time, so replaying a stage gives you a partly new puzzle.
Which languages are supported?
The game is available in eight languages: English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
