If you’re over twenty, you may remember Dr. Kawashima’s breakthrough ‘how old is your brain’ game, which asked players to complete a series of fun and brain-teasing challenges to assess the state of their mind. The success of this game – and those that have followed it – was to combine fun with mental aerobics, thus making exercising your brain something that was fun to do. Nowadays, there’s plenty out there that offers both entertainment and the sort of thinking that helps your brain grow and develop in adulthood – here’s a run-through of some of the best and most accessible brain training games for you to get stuck into.

Sudoku

Originating in France in the 19th century but popularised in its current brand by a Japanese game company, the Sudoku is the king of number-based logical brain-teasers, requiring you fill in a 9×9 grid is such a way that no numbers between 1 and 9 occur in the same row, column, or box. It’s deeply satisfying, after struggling with your pencil darting around the grid for a few minutes, to crack a small part of the puzzle, inscribing a few more numbers into the grid. Continue reading →