What Kind of Games are Good for Your Brain?

The brain is not dissimilar to muscles – it only gets stronger and sharper when it is exercised. It’s vital to keep the brain as active as possible – since it develops through brain training activities.

Most of us have a pretty good idea of the types of brain training games that are sure to have an impact on our mental acuity. Right off the bat, games like Chess, Scrabble, and Crossword Puzzles come to mind. These games work because they evoke deep thought, tactical and strategic planning, and a methodical selection of options.

Now that we’re in the digital age, these games and many more like them are readily available to players on PC, Mac, Android, and iOS devices. Games like Chess can be experienced on the go, on smartphones and tablets. While Chess is a terrific brain training game, it’s not for everyone. It caters to a niche audience of mathematically-minded players and doesn’t typically have mass market appeal. Nonetheless, it is a fabulous brain training game which will teach you the art of strategic decision-making processes. A few words about Chess are in order:

• The game is played between two players – or a player versus the computer.
• There are Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, Castles and Pawns each with abilities.
• The objective is to checkmate the opposition King and win the game.

It seems simple enough, but the sheer intensity of skilled chess play is enough to push your brain into overload capacity.

Crossword Puzzles

A crossword puzzle is an ingenious invention. The concept itself requires much thought – your goal is to uncover the riddles and rhymes with the right words that correlate with every other word in the crossword. Crossword puzzles are readily available in the local newspaper, online, or at the App Store. You can choose the intensity level that challenges your brain best. If you’re using a pen and paper – switch out the pen for a pencil. You’re likely to be making multiple mistakes in your quest to get everything to fit. You may also want a copy of the Oxford dictionary handy, perhaps even a Thesaurus to make sure you have all the information you need. If you’re a new-age type, you can do all of this online, it’s much more efficient, and you can get through more crosswords. One of the most difficult crosswords to complete is the New York Times crossword – you may even wish to enlist the support of your college professor, perhaps even a group of buddies. Download a high-quality crossword puzzle app, and your brain will let you know that this is a mental challenge of note.

Lose Yourself in a Brain Training Adventure

Brain training needn’t be about Chess and crossword puzzles – on the contrary, there are lots of fun games that will stress your brain to the max. Are you familiar with scarcity? Of course you are – it means that there’s simply not enough of something to go around. Well, when games introduce scarcity into the mix they become brain training games. Why? Because you compelled to use a limited set of resources or moves, to complete levels and advance to higher stages of the game. This is a tried and tested method of training your brain to think outside the proverbial box.

We scoured the literature in search of really entertaining brain training games and came up with a winner – Cube Blast. Cubes are geometric forms that have captivated the minds of the world’s foremost thinkers. Blasting is the fun part. Put these two together and you get to cube match your way to victory. This particular game is quite extraordinary – you are required to match 2 adjacent cubes to remove them from the screen. The more cubes you match, the quicker you advance through the game. This puzzle style game features hundreds of levels, each one progressively more difficult than the next. It’s hook, line, and sinker in a matter of moments. The game is engaging, and lots of fun. You get special features like rockets, bombs, and color wheels when you match specific numbers of cubes and remove them from the screen. These help you to advance rapidly through game levels.

And there you have it folks – a combination of brain training games that are bound to leave an indelible impression on your grey matter!