Brain Games

Eight games, five skills

Today’s three and your streak

Every day three games are picked for you: one for memory, one for logic or planning, and one for speed or spatial thinking. Everyone gets the same three on the same date, so you can compare with a friend. Finishing any game counts as a day played, and the flame shows how many days in a row you have kept it up.

Each game remembers where you got to. The puzzle games start you a level below where you finished last time, so you warm up and then climb; the memory games start one step below your best run.

How each game works

MemoryGrid Memory lights up tiles one after another; you tap them back in the same order. It starts at three tiles and adds one each time you are right, with two tries at each length. The grid grows from 3 × 3 to 4 × 4 at five tiles and to 5 × 5 at eight. Psychologists call this a Corsi block test; most adults repeat a run of about 5 or 6.

MemoryNumber Recall shows digits one per second, then asks for them on a number pad. Forwards tests how much you can hold; backwards also makes you work on it, which is harder — most adults manage about 6 or 7 forwards and 4 or 5 backwards. Saying the digits under your breath, or grouping them in twos and threes like a phone number, helps.

MemoryN-Back shows a square in one of eight places, every two and a half seconds. Press Match when it is where it was N squares ago. At 1-back that is simply “same as last time”; at 2-back you must keep the last two in mind and keep updating them, and every step up is a big jump. A round has 20 + N squares, six of them matches. Score 85 % or more and the next round goes up a step; under 60 % and it comes down one.

LogicMissing Tile is a 3 × 3 grid of pictures with the last one missing. Along every row the pictures follow the same rules — the number of shapes goes up, the shape cycles through three kinds, the fill gets darker, or, in the line puzzles, the third tile is the first two combined. Level 1 has one rule; level 10 has four at once. Every puzzle is checked by the page before it is shown, so only one of the eight answers fits, and after each answer the rule is explained in words.

LogicWhat Comes Next is a row of numbers built from one rule: add the same each time, multiply, gaps that grow, two rows taking turns, each number the sum of the two before it, and more. The page also checks that no other common rule fits the same numbers and gives a different answer.

SpatialSame or Mirror? shows two shapes made of squares, turned different ways. Decide whether the right one is the same shape turned round, or its mirror image. Every shape used is one-handed, like a glove, so there is always a right answer. Five right in a row bring bigger shapes and odder angles.

Focus1 to 25 is a Schulte table: the numbers 1 to 25 scattered over a 5 × 5 grid, to be tapped in order as fast as you can. Readers use it to widen how much they take in at a glance; try to keep your eyes on the middle of the grid and let the numbers come to you. There are also 4 × 4 and 3 × 3 grids.

PlanningTower Puzzle is the Tower of Hanoi: move the stack to the goal peg one disc at a time, never putting a bigger disc on a smaller one. The fewest moves for n discs is 2ⁿ − 1 — 7 for three discs, 15 for four, 31 for five, 255 for eight. The trick is to see the tower as a smaller tower sitting on one big disc.

Do brain games make you smarter?

Honestly: you will get better at these games, and quite quickly. Whether that carries over to the rest of your thinking is much less clear. Large reviews of the research have found good evidence that people improve at the tasks they practise, less evidence that it helps with closely related tasks, and little evidence that brain-training games raise intelligence or everyday performance in general. In 2016 the US Federal Trade Commission settled with the makers of a well-known brain-training app over advertising claims it said they could not back up.

So play these because they are satisfying, make a good five-minute warm-up for study or work, and show you how your memory and focus vary from day to day — tired, rushed or after a good night’s sleep. Sleep, exercise, learning new things and time with other people have far better evidence behind them for a sharp mind.

Tips

• Find a quiet two minutes. Memory games are very sensitive to distraction; a notification halfway through will cost you a run.
• Chunk it. Group digits in twos and threes, and picture the tiles as a path or a shape.
• Name the rule. In Missing Tile, look at one thing at a time — first how many, then which shape, then size, then fill.
• Accuracy first, then speed. In Same or Mirror a wrong answer costs a point, so a steady pace beats guessing.

Questions

Do brain games make you smarter?

You will get better at the games you practise, and they are a good way to exercise memory and focus. Whether that carries over to everyday thinking or IQ is much less certain — see above. Play them because they are enjoyable, not as a promise of a higher IQ.

How long does each game take?

One to three minutes. Same or Mirror runs for exactly 60 seconds, a 1-to-25 grid takes most people under a minute, and the memory games last as long as you keep getting them right. Today’s three takes five to eight minutes.

What is a good score?

For the memory games there are rough figures from published memory tests: about 5 or 6 tiles in Grid Memory, and about 6 or 7 digits forwards or 4 or 5 backwards in Number Recall. For the other games, the score to beat is your own best, which each game keeps.

How does the daily streak work?

Finishing any game counts as a day played. The streak counts the days in a row you have played; it does not break until a whole day passes with no game.

Can I use a keyboard?

Yes. Type digits and press Enter on the number pads, press 1–8 to choose a Missing Tile answer, the Space bar for Match in N-Back, ← and → for Same and Mirror, and 1, 2 and 3 for the pegs in the Tower Puzzle.

Is anything saved or uploaded?

Your best scores, levels, the days you played and your choices are kept in this browser only, so they are still there next time on this device. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account. Clearing your browser’s site data clears them.

More: IQ Test · Party Games for 1–4 players · Typing Speed Test · All games