Cards name. Rooms make you write.
Anki vs a memory room for DSA
A flashcard can name Two Pointers. It does not make you write the move with the notes away. A memory room is a spatial cue plus a rebuild, on the same spacing ladder you already trust.
Keep the schedule. Change the cue.
FSRS and similar schedulers are good at when to ask. They are weak at what “correct” means for code. A named pattern on the front of a card is recognition. An interview asks you to produce the invariant and the loop.
A room gives the cue a place you can walk. Hide the notes. Attempt the rebuild. Grade the attempt. Then let the same schedule — later today, days, weeks — bring that room back.
Serious, not a game overlay.
The city, the rooms, and the notes-away question are the memory system. Games are optional drills. If you already use a deck, keep it for names and definitions. Put the algorithm moves in a room you can picture.
The first room is public. Try the method before you decide whether a card or a room is the right cue for the next pattern.
Keep Anki for names. Put the move in a room.
Definitions, complexity labels, and language syntax stay fine as cards. The loop invariant, the pointer motion, and the base case belong in a place you can walk, then write with the notes away.
If a card has been easy for a month and you still blank at the keyboard, the cue was the name. Change the cue. The first room shows the method in five minutes.