brain games for critical thinking

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7 Puzzles to Challenge Your Critical Thinking

Can you spot the connections and sort these items.

Posted March 5, 2015 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

The theme of this post is critical thinking—and the kinds of puzzles that can be constructed around it. This term is used frequently in psychology and education . There are various definitions, but the one that best suits our purpose and which is, in the end, perhaps the best, is the ability to comprehend the logical connections among ideas, words, phrases, and concepts . In the relevant scientific literature, of course, the term is used much more broadly as a framework for understanding human cognition . But in my opinion, the best way to understand things is to construct puzzles to illustrate their basic essence.

Critical thinking involves skill at recognizing a pattern in given information and especially recognizing how the information is connected to the real world. Here are a couple of very simple examples. First, consider the five words below:

• Cruise ship
• Walking on foot
• Automobile (not a race car)

Now, put them in order from the slowest to the fastest, when they are going at maximum speed. The solution, of course, is: 4-2-5-1-3.

As with all such puzzles, there might be slightly different solutions—one could claim that some automobiles go faster than cruise ships. This “indeterminacy” characterizes this kind of thinking. However, some puzzles are straightforward. For instance, what do the following five things have in common?

The answer? These are all words referring to shades of blue.

The seven puzzles below are to the ones above, though hopefully more challenging. Some involve knowledge of facts, but critical thinking is still involved in such cases because the organization of the facts according to some principle is always involved—for example, a puzzle may ask you to put five items in order of their dates of invention.

The following tongue-in-cheek definition of critical thinking by Richard W. Paul, a leading expert on critical thinking theory, says it all: “Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking in order to make your thinking better.”

I. What do the following 5 things have in common?

• Orange juice

II. Put the following buildings or structures in order of height, from the shortest to the tallest.

• Typical camping tent

III. What do the following animals have in common?

IV. Put the following inventions in order from earliest to most recent.

V. What feature do the following words have in common?

• Imagination

VI. Put these bodies of water in order in terms of volume, from smallest to largest .

VII. What do the following landmasses have in common?

I. They are all drinkable liquids. II. 5-1-4-3-2 III. They all have a tail. They are also all quadrupeds. IV. To the best of my knowledge: 5-4-3-1-2 V. They start with a vowel: a, e, i, o, u VI. 4-2-1-5-3 VII. They are all peninsulas.

Marcel Danesi, Ph.D. , is a professor of semiotics and anthropology at Victoria College, University of Toronto. His books include The Puzzle Instinct and The Total Brain Workout .

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10 Best Brain Games to Keep Your Mind Sharp

Playing mind games is a no-brainer

 Mark Stibich, PhD, FIDSA, is a behavior change expert with experience helping individuals make lasting lifestyle improvements.

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

Aaron Johnson is a fact checker and expert on qualitative research design and methodology. 

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Happy Neuron

Brain age concentration training, my brain trainer.

People of all ages use brain-training games to improve mental functioning and prevent brain aging . Backing them up is research showing that brain-training games may help improve attention levels, memory, response time, logic skills, and other measures of cognitive function if played over a long timespan.

The brain is just like a muscle - it thrives on exercise! As a neurologist, I'm thrilled by the incredible potential of brain games to help people flex their mental muscles, activating underused brain circuits to sharpen cognition and skills like focus, speed, and memory.

From pen-and-paper Sudoku and crosswords to specialized brain training apps, options for brain games are plentiful. To give your brain a workout while having fun, try these games and activities that may improve your mental focus and fitness.

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Sudoku is a number placement game that relies on short-term memory. To complete a Sudoku puzzle, you have to look ahead and follow trails of consequences—if you put a 6 in this box, that one must be an 8 and this one a 4, and so on. This type of planning helps improve short-term memory and concentration.

You can play Sudoku online, on an app, or on paper. Look for a regular Sudoku in your newspaper, buy a book with a collection of puzzles, or download a free app for your phone or tablet.

Sudoku puzzles are available in varying degrees of difficulty. When you're starting out, play the easy games until you learn the rules. If you're playing on paper, use a pencil!

Lumosity is one of the most established brain training and mental fitness programs. You can sign up for a free account to play three games per day, or choose the subscription service for more offerings. Either way, you can keep track of your results and improvement.

One recent study showed that participants who played Lumosity's exercises for 15 minutes a day at least seven days a week for three weeks experienced improved attention and motor speed. You can use Lumosity via their website or download the Lumosity app on iOS and Android. Lumosity also has a meditation and mindfulness app called Lumosity Mind.

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Crosswords are a classic brain trainer, accessing not only verbal language but memory from many dimensions of knowledge. There are many ways to do crossword puzzles, both online and off. If you receive a daily newspaper, you'll almost always get a crossword there. Or pick up a book of crosswords specifically suited to your skill level and interests.

You will also find many options for crossword puzzles online or via free or inexpensive apps. The AARP website offers a daily crossword that's free to everyone, whether or not you're a member of the group.

Elevate's games center on reading, writing, speaking, and math, and you can customize your training to focus on whichever areas you prefer. As with most other brain games, you can track your progress to see how your skills are improving.

You'll need to download an app to play Elevate 's 35 (and counting) different brain-training games, which have a strongly educational feel. It's free (with in-app purchases) and both iOS and Android versions have tens of thousands of five-star reviews.

Peak is another app-only option (available for iOS and Android) that provides brain games to help you work on focus, memory, problem-solving, mental agility, and more cognitive functions. If you're a competitive person, you might be motivated by seeing how you perform against other users. The app is free to use, but an inexpensive subscription unlocks more features.

Happy Neuron divides its games and activities into five critical brain areas: memory, attention, language, executive functions, and visual/spatial. Like Lumosity, it personalizes the training to fit you, tracks your progress, and the games are based on scientific research.

You must pay a monthly subscription fee to use the site, and its simplified app version is available for Android users only. Happy Neuron does, however, offer a free trial offer so you can see if you like the approach.

Claiming to have the world's largest collection of brain teasers, Braingle's free website provides more than 15,000 puzzles, games, and other brain teasers as well as an online community of enthusiasts. You can even create your own puzzles to give your brain a super workout. Braingle has a wide variety of offerings, including optical illusions, codes and ciphers, and trivia quizzes.

Queendom has thousands of personality tests and surveys. It also has an extensive collection of "brain tools"—including logic, verbal, spatial, and math puzzles; trivia quizzes; and aptitude tests—for you to exercise and test your brain. If you'd like to save results and scores, you'll need a free account. Some tests give you only snapshot results for free, and charge a fee for full reports.

Brain Age: Concentration Training / Nintendo Life

Brain Age Concentration Training is a brain training and mental fitness system for the Nintendo 3DS system. It includes a huge number of games to hone your concentration, memory, calculation, and other brain skills. It's fun, portable, and challenging. Brain Age is also available for the Nintendo Wii U, but not for the Switch, Nintendo's most up-to-date gaming system.

My Brain Trainer calls itself an online "brain gym." It is similar in format to, although less stylish than, Lumosity and Happy Neuron. It's also less expensive; a three-month subscription costs the same as a month on the other services. The annual subscription is an even bigger savings. You can try a challenge for free as well.

This website is full of games, puzzles, and other challenges designed to improve your mental fitness. The website recommends 10 minutes of brain training twice a day for the best effects. It also has a basic training program that claims to improve your mental speed.

This web-based puzzle game from The New York Times exploded in popularity in early 2022 and now counts millions of users worldwide. The premise is simple: Users get six tries to guess a five-letter word. Wordle's combination of problem-solving challenges and easy-to-use interface makes for a satisfying mental workout.

Keep in Mind

Remember, brain training isn't limited to games and puzzles; staying socially engaged, maintaining creative hobbies, and even working out can help to flex your brain and improve cognitive functioning. Find what feels good and works for you.

Make brain training a daily habit and build the mental reserves to delay cognitive decline!

Al-Thaqib A, Al-Sultan F, Al-Zahrani A, et al. Brain training games enhance cognitive function in healthy subjects .  Med Sci Monit Basic Res . 2018;24:63-69. doi:10.12659%2FMSMBR.909022

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Critical thinking puzzles for adults (with answers)

Critical thinking can help to better navigate the information-dense and complex world we live in. By thinking critically we can better identify priorities, take a sensible approach to problem-solving and reach conclusions logically in line with evidence. Puzzles are an excellent way both to learn and practice critical thinking skills.

If you’d like to learn more about critical thinking or simply practice your skills with some puzzles, then this is the article for you. Read a little bit more about critical thinking skills and how to apply them first, or just skip straight to the puzzles and see how you get on.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is a broad approach to problem solving and analysis based on logic and evidence. It brings together a wide range of intellectual competences and the ability to combine and cross-reference them. Some of the most important elements of a critical thinking approach include:

Analytical skills:

• understanding of questions and concepts
• differentiation of relevant / irrelevant evidence and information
• identification of similarities, connections and differences
• use of metaphors or analogies to communicate ideas

Powers of inference:

• extraction of meaning from data using inductive or deductive reasoning
• extrapolation of data or abstraction into concepts and patterns
• correct identification and deployment of analogies and assumptions
• grasp of causal relationships, allowing development of conclusions and theories.

Data and theory evaluation:

• assessment of how strong, important or credible a theory might be
• taking on board new data and new arguments which alter understanding of ideas and theory

Rational decision-making:

– application of all the skills and competences above in order to come to a rational conclusion.

Problem-solving attitude: In addition to being able to think critically, you must also be personally inclined to think critically when facing a difficult or complex challenge. Developing qualities including curiosity and fairness, while distancing yourself from ideologies and group-think, should all help to create the kind of psychological landscape where critical thinking can flourish.

How can I learn critical thinking?

Critical thinking skills are hard to develop from only reading books or listening to lectures. The most effective way to sharpen and deepen critical thinking faculties is to practice critical thinking . Critical thinking puzzles offer a fun way to learn and the eight critical thinking puzzles we’ve chosen for this article should help you make a good start.

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Eight critical thinking puzzles – with answers

Puzzle 1 – letter puzzles.

What common feature do the following words share?

Answer: All of these words begin with a vowel. This type of puzzle may send your mind off in the wrong direction, thinking about the objects or concepts described by the words, and the properties they might share. In fact, the solution lies in a far more simple consideration of the alphabet. Puzzle 1 is a simple example of a common type of letter or word puzzle.

Puzzle 2 – Commonalities and differences

What do the following items have in common and which is the odd one out?

Orange Juice

Answer: These items are all liquids and the odd one out is petrol, since all the others are drinkable liquids.

Puzzle 3 – Falling on his feet

A man who lives in a high-rise building decides to exit through the window one morning rather than using the door. Somehow he survives the fall without a scratch and walks away to work. How did this happen?

Answer: The man lived on the ground or first floor and merely stepped or jumped down to the pavement outside. By stating early on that the building in question was a high-rise building, it’s easy for someone reading quickly to assume that the man jumped from a window on a high store but this it s not necessarily the case.

Puzzle 4 – Walk this way

A group of five people enter a windowless meeting room together. An hour later when the meeting ends, four walk out of the door, leaving the room empty. What has happened to the fifth member of the group?

Answer: The fifth person was in a wheelchair and wheeled out of the room rather than walked. Solving this puzzle requires you to think laterally about the question and the possible solutions. The answer can be found by asking yourself whether the emphasis of the question is on the emptiness of the room or the means by which the other four people left.

Puzzle 5 – Shapes and symbols

When lying on my side, I am everything, but when cut in half, I am nothing. What am I?

Answer: The number 8. This puzzle requires that you think about a shape being repositioned or cut in a way that can change it to “everything” or “nothing”. Number 8 on its side is the mathematical symbol for infinity (i.e. everything) and also shaped like two small number 0s put together.

Puzzle 6 – Three hard options

The hero is escaping the lair of an evil super-villain and is faced with three possible exits:

• Door A leads into a pit of bubbling lava
• Door B leads to a room housing a deadly hitman
• Door C leads to the den full of lions that haven’t had a meal for a year.

Which door should the hero choose?

Answer: Door C. If the lion hasn’t eaten in a year, it will definitely be dead by now. This type of puzzle requires you to consider the full implications of the information given, rather than being drawn into a comparison of the relative dangers of lava, hitmen and lions…

Puzzle 7 – The bus driver’s eyes

You are a bus driver. Today the bus is empty at the start of your route but at the first stop, four people get onto the bus. Eight people get on at the second stop, while three alight. When the bus reaches the third stop, one more gets off, and three get on.

At the fourth stop, two people get off the bus and one gets on. The bus is traveling at an average speed of 30mph and its tires are new.  What color are the bus driver’s eyes?

Answer: You are the bus driver so the color will be the color of your own eyes. This type of puzzle tries to confuse you and obscure the single piece of relevant information by presenting large quantities of irrelevant information.

Puzzle 8 – Losing weight

A man walks into a room, closes the doors behind him and presses a button. In a matter of seconds the man is 20lb lighter. Despite this, he leaves the room at the same weight he entered it.

Answer: The room in question is actually an elevator. When the man gets in and presses the button, the elevator moves downwards with an acceleration that reduces the effect of gravity and makes the man temporarily 20lb lighter. Once the lift stops moving, the man’s weight is subject to normal gravity, just the same as before. Solving this puzzle requires a small piece of general physics knowledge.

A final word…

We hope you’ve enjoyed our critical thinking puzzles for adults and that your critical thinking skills are feeling refreshed and sharpened after reading our article. Whether at school, in the workplace, or in general life, critical thinking can be a valuable tool for success and anyone can learn to use it.

Get more critical thinking puzzles on our Youtube channel:

20 Challenging Lateral Thinking Puzzles That Are Harder Than They Seem

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Researching the efficacy of Lumosity

What we did

Lumos Labs conducted a randomized study of Lumosity brain training and published the results in a peer-reviewed research journal.

In it, half of the 4,715 participants who completed the study trained five days per week, for fifteen minutes each day on Lumosity while the other half did online crossword puzzles as an active control.

What we found

After 10 weeks, Lumosity users improved more than the control group on our assessments of working memory, short term memory, processing speed, problem solving, fluid reasoning, and overall cognitive function.

These results are promising, but more research is needed to determine the connection between improved assessment scores and everyday tasks in participants' lives.

Next questions

Future research should address the risk of inadvertent experimenter bias and the risk of attrition bias in this study, as both the Lumosity and crossword groups had approximately 50% attrition rate. As with all scientific research, there is also a risk of publication bias.

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Best Brain Games

There is nothing worthwhile doing when you are bored to death, than to occupy your mind with games that will make you think, think, think!

Brain exercises are just as important as physical exercises. Solving mental problems through logical thinking sets our minds to be always on the go. While playing and thinking, brainwaves are in full power, thus awakening dead brain cells!

In the modern world, we can play brain games not only through board games and physical games we play but also online! There are a lot of apps we can download on our phones and computers that will let us play the best games for our sleepy brains.

We have prepared a list of the best brain games that will definitely rejuvenate your brain and sharpen it!

This game was released last March 9, 2014, and was designed by Italian web developer Gabriele Cirulli. This is a single-player game that is all about addition and numbers. To date, it has more than 17 million downloads and millions of active users! Not only that, but it also has more than 120,000 5-star ratings!

It is fun and addictive to the point that even if you already reach the objective of obtaining a tile with a value of 2048, you still can’t stop playing! Everyone really enjoys a simple number puzzle which is still tricky.

How to play 2048

The object of the game is to slide together adjacent slides with the same values. Sliding them together adds value to the tiles. The ultimate goal is to obtain a tile with the value 2048, hence the name of the game.

You can still continue to play and increase the value until there are no more valid moves. Meaning, there are no empty spaces and no adjacent tiles with the same value. When this happens, the game ends!

So what are you waiting for? Follow this link and have some 2048 fun! Play 2048 now!

10. Four Pics, One Word

This game was released last February 4, 2013, by its publisher, Lotum GmbH. This is a simple word game that needs concentration and a vast vocabulary. All you need to do is download the game apps then start playing. By just reading its title, you will already have an idea on how to play this.

4 Pics, 1 Word a hit game that has 250,000,000 players worldwide! There is no need for registration fees and there are no complicated rules. What’s more, is that this game is available in nine (9) languages to cater to its growing number of players. In October 2020, 70,000 people downloaded its app.

Countless puzzles ranging from easy to tricky are waiting for you! New puzzles are added continuously for endless word fun! Find out what it is about this game that makes everyone so hooked and join the fun now!

How to play Four Pics, One Word

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, so goes the old English adage. For each round, this game will give you four words (which translates to four thousands!). Using your wits, your concentration, and your vocabulary, you need to find the common thing about the four pictures and use that to find the correct word.

Your hint would be the number of letters represented by the number of empty boxes below the four pictures. If the game gets too hard and you’re out of ideas, you can click the hint or help button that will give you a free letter!

9. Treasure Hunt

Treasure hunting is a game that involves physically searching for a treasure by following a series of clues and sometimes riddles to ultimately find the treasure or objects. It is also known as scavenger hunt which is a game wherein organizers give the players a list of objects to look for and collect. Players must complete the list or find the treasure, without purchasing them, of course!

Treasure hunting or scavenger hunting was more popularized during the 1930’s in the elite New York Society. Currently, it is played worldwide during school activities, campings, and even during holidays and parties. You may be familiar with Egg Hunting during the Easter season wherein participants look for hidden eggs. Some people also hide goodies during Halloween and have the kids find them to replace the traditional trick-or-treating.

How to play Treasure Hunt

A game like this needs to be very organized. Organizers must prepare a series of clues. Some use riddles to add a dramatic effect to the hunt. They will give the participants the first clue which will lead to the next clue, and so on, so forth. The clues have to be very smart, precise yet not so obvious so the participants will have to really concentrate and think in order to decipher the clues.

🤓 Suggested read: Brain Games For Adults 🧠

You can play this game by teams. You can use teamwork, resourcefulness and wits to finish the hunt and find the treasure. Like any other game, it would be much more exciting if a nice prize awaits the winner at the end of the hunt or race. The organizers can declare the treasure, itself, as the prize!

8. Crossword Puzzles

Crossword puzzles are word searching games which usually take the form of a square or rectangle grid. There will be clues for each word and you will just have to follow the legends in order to complete the puzzle. Crossword puzzles are usually found at the back of most newspapers as a sort of entertainment to readers. There are also various books that are filled with crossword puzzles that you can complete.

Of course in the modern world of technology, there is no need for newspapers and books, as long as you are connected to the internet. With just one click, you can download loads of gaming apps that will give you unlimited crossword puzzles to solve to your heart’s desire!

How to play Crossword Puzzles

To play this game, all you need to do is use your logic and vocabulary to decipher each word that each clue is pertaining to. The words are literally connected to each other in the puzzle itself. The direction of each word could be diagonal, across (left to right) or downwards. Follow the instructions and legends properly.

👉 Suggested read: Brain Games Apps

The more words you correctly find, the more clues you answer, you will find that it’s easier to complete the puzzle. This is because you can already see some of the letters that will give you hints for the next words you need to find!

7. Rubik’s Cube

Puzzle lovers just adore this 3D puzzle that was invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. It was originally a toy called “Magic cube” and was first distributed by Ideal Toy Corp. six years after it was invented.

Since it hit the shelves in Budapest in 1980, there is a record of 350,000,000 Rubik’s cubes sold to date! This game also launched its own competition. As of now the fastest “cuber” in the world is Yusheng Du who finished the puzzle at a record-breaking 3.47 seconds! He beat Feliks Zemdegs by 0.75 seconds. According to most people it is the best puzzle game and the best-selling toy in the world.

It doesn’t stop there because solving the Rubik’s cube is very good in activating your brain cells and improves your brain’s cognitive mapping skills!

How to play Rubik’s Cube

There are 26 cubelets in each Rubik’s cube. To solve it, you need to twist the cubes and make sure to solve each face of the cube. Meaning, you should be able to to start with some randomized, shuffled, messy configuration of the cube and, by rotating the faces, get back to the original solved pattern with each side being a single color.

There are 40,320 ways to solve the puzzle of the Rubik’s cube. At first you will be content to just solve it but as you get better and better, you will want to improve on your speed. You just need to familiarize yourself with the patterns and figure out the fastest way to solve the puzzle! Can’t wait to play Rubik’s cube? Follow this link and start the fun NOW! Play Rubik’s Cube Now!

6. Murder Mystery Games

As the name suggests, this game is all about solving a crime and finding out who the killer is. There are a lot of games that solves murder mystery. Right now, you can find numerous variations online. They can be scripted or turn-based games that work by releasing information over the course of the game. As the game progresses, each character learns something new about the plot and their involvement.

You can play a character, search for clues, study all the evidence, solve the crime, uncover the murderer. Playing this type of game is a truly original way to entertain friends, family and people you work with.

Not only that, murder mystery games also improves your reasoning skills, logic, deductive reasoning and your gutts and instinct! You might someday grow up to be the next Sherlock Holmes!

How to play Murder Mystery Games

Murder Mystery games usually start with a story plot that explains the scenario. The players randomly pick a card or piece of paper that will give them their roles to play. Among all of you, there will be at least one killer. The group can decide what the killer should do to be able to make a kill. You can all agree that winking on someone can kill that person. Those who are killed will be out of the game.

Among the players, there will be at least one detective who should catch the killer. Given a certain time, the killer can do his or her killings. The detective should catch the killer before time runs out or before everyone gets killed.

This is just one example of a murder mystery game. You can add to the rules and make it more exciting! The more players, the better!

5. Bookworm Adventures

This word puzzle video game revolves around the adventures of Lex, an actual and literal bookworm, in the Great Library. It was invented by Popcom and it has three books namely Oedipus Lex, Arabian Knight and Lexonomicon! This game has 5 different modes: Adventure Mode, Arena, Mini-games, Tome of Knowledge, and Clips and Giggles. It will introduce you to about 150 enemies. Each book has a boss battle which you should conquer in order to proceed to the next book.

This is mainly a very fun word game that has awesome graphics. Your strategy, logic and vocabulary are tested while playing this game as you maneuver each move that Lex will make.

How to play Bookworm Adventures

In each level, you will be given your set of turns to fight back against your enemy. In order to make your move, just form a word using your given set of letters. The longer the word, the bigger the move, and the more points will be deducted from your opponent!

A little tip, give your longer words first before time runs out and your opponent has made big blows on you that could diminish your health and lives.

Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a multiplayer online battle arena mode for the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. It is a series of strategy video games developed and published by Valve. Everyday, millions of players worldwide join the battle as one of over a hundred different heroes.

This game will test your knowledge of the game, strategies and techniques in order to outwit, overpower and defeat your opponents in the game!

How to play DotA

First of all, you need to familiarize yourself with the plot of the game and its heroes, character strengths and capabilities and how to activate them. You’ll need to know the use of items and how to access said items. Play the tutorial. For many, DotA is already considered an online sport. You wouldn’t play a sport with a bunch of strangers without knowing how it works.

You can find a coach or play against game bots. If you want to avoid criticism, play the artificial intelligence bots. AIs tend to be very aggressive so you will be in for a challenge. There are in-game guides that you can use, too. They are not rulebooks but they can be your starting point so that you will know your heroes’ abilities and you can test stuff.

🤓 Suggested read: Fun Brain Games 🧠

Above all DotA is about teamwork, strategy, camaraderie and wisdom. You need to train, study and master your skills then you can try working it out with your teammates.

3. Scrabble

Scrabble is a classic and very known word game worldwide. It is played on a board of 15x15 squares. The game is played and sold in 121 countries and is in more than 30 languages worldwide. As one of the best-selling classic games, more than 150,000,000 scrabble sets have been sold to date.

This stimulating game has entertained friends and families during pastime and a third of the families in the US owns a scrabble set per household. This game tests one’s vocabulary and strategy as your words must be carefully placed in order to block an opponent’s move and earn more points for you.

How to play Scrabble

The goal and objective of the game is to earn the most points by forming words using the letters on the tiles given to you. Each letter/tile has a corresponding number of points to it. The game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10. There are also two blank tiles with zero points but can be used as a wildcard letter by the players (meaning they decided on what letter it stands for).

The words must be read across (left to right) or downwards. The words must also be found in a standard English dictionary for it to be valid. Some of the squares on the board are premium squares because once they are used, they could triple or double the points on the letter or word for which it has been used on.

👉 Suggested read: GTA 5 Cheats: List of all GTA V cheats for every platform.

Scrabble is played by two to four players. Each player will draw seven tiles and will keep refilling their set of seven tiles until all tiles are drawn. Each player will have his or her turn to form a word on the board, the next player should connect his word to the words on the board.

The game ends when one player manages to use all of his tiles. You each tally and total your scores (minus the points of your unused tiles) and the player with the most points wins!

Another classic board game, chess is all about strategy. It is played by millions worldwide and has recently been the main sport attraction of the recently released hit Netflix show, The Queen’s Gambit (named after a famous chess opening).

Chess players are known to be those people who can win battles. Their minds can predict the next moves of the opponent and can block those moves before they can even say “checkmate!”. It might be a very complicated game but once you learn it, your brain will be exercised in ways you could never imagine.

How to play Chess

This game is played between two players. A play has no hidden information. Everything is laid out on the board. Each player begins with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each piece type moves differently. The most powerful is the queen and the least powerful is the pawn.

The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s king by cornering it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player’s pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent’s pieces, all at the same time supporting one another.

During the game, play typically involves the exchange of pieces for the opponent’s similar pieces. It also involves finding and commandeering opportunities to trade at your benefit or to get a better position in the game.

Other than checkmate, a player wins the game if the opponent resigns, or when time runs out. There are also instances wherein a game will end in a draw.

Sudoku, meaning “single number”, is a numerical puzzle which was introduced by the Japanese Nikoli in the newspaper Monthly Nikolist in April 1984. At first, it was called “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru” which literally means “the digits must be single”. Later it was shortened to Sudoku by Maki Kaji.

Studies show that playing sudoku can do wonders to a part of human cognition called our working memory. They say that older people who play sudoku tend to improve their working memory compared to those who don’t.

Play Sudoku online

How to play Sudoku

The objective of a game of Sudoku is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits wherein each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 subgrids that compose the grid contains all of the nine single digits which are 1 to 9. When you think about it, it may seem easy at first but as you progress into the game, you’ll realize that it is tricky.

It is when you are almost done that you finally notice the mistakes you make and you will need to retrace your steps. Sudoku requires patience, focus, and strategy. When you get the hang of it, it is actually a very fun game that will give your memory the boost it needs!

In playing these games, you need to remember that with each level or round you finish, win or lose, is a step closer to improving yourself. Playing these brain games will enhance your memory, logic, critical thinking, strategy, vocabulary, and more cognitive skills that you don’t even know about. Other than that, you are also improving your self-confidence which is very important for self-development.

What are you waiting for? Gather your friends and family for a brain game night that you will forever cherish!

It's all about gaming!

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Free Brain Games

Free Brain Games from Arkadium:  (the creator of the solitaire games that come pre-installed with Microsoft Windows) Bridge, mahjongg, sudoku, card games, puzzles, chess and more. These games are of excellent quality.

Sharp Brains : An award winning top 50 collection. This site is more intellectual in nature, it’s better for adult-child discussion or for use with older kids and adults.

Brain Food: Made to be read, lateral thinking puzzles. Choose between “realistic” and “tricky”.

Mensa for Kids: The high IQ society has put together a fun site of puzzles and games designed just for kids.

Math Playground: Great logic games, word problems, and can generate worksheets.

Cool Math: They say they are the world’s most popular educational game site.

Fun Brain: They say they are the internet’s #1 educational site. Offers reading and math games.

NASA Kids Club : Choose skill level. Space and memory games. Good graphics.

PBS Games: Scroll down the page and choose by educational topic. Good Graphics.

BrainBashers : Tons of brain games. Many Japanese puzzles too.

I’m a Puzzle:   Children and adults can play and create jigsaw puzzles from any image online. Choose from categories such as; kids, animals, art or nature.

Grin Riddles:  Choose from riddles for kids, hard riddles, funny riddles, and more.

*Controlling the sites your kids go to for games is important. Some game sites appear “fun” and “cute” but will actually load malware onto your computer. These free brain games have been kid tested and teacher approved, although we cannot be responsible for external links off these sites.

Featured Article

Thinking games kids will love.

We like our kids to have games and toys which promote thinking skills and higher level learning—while keeping them entertained for more than a few mere minutes. Below is a list of some of our favorite thinking games for kids. As adults we enjoyed playing many of these games too! Read More about “Thinking Games Kids Will Love” …

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How to Play 52 Essential Critical Thinking Cards

Ways to play, level 1: knowledge-building.

TAKE TURNS DRAWING A CARD COLLECT 15 TO WIN.

"Bias Blitz"

Announce the cognitive bias name on the top of the card. Players shout out the definition based on the name. The first to guess correctly wins the card. If no one does, reveal the definition and return the card to the draw pile.

"Critical Contemplation"

Read the definition and quote on the card without revealing its name. Players take turns naming this cognitive bias. The player with the closest or funniest name wins the card.

LEVEL 2: COMPREHENSION

TAKE TURNS DRAWING A CARD COLLECT 10 TO WIN.

"Cognitive Conquest"

Read the example on the card out loud. Players take turns guessing the bias name and the cognitive assumptions it involves. The player who guesses correctly collects the card.

"Bias Breakdown"

Explain the concept on your card in terms a 5-year-old would understand. If your explanation helps others guess correctly, you collect the card.

LEVEL 3: REAL-WORLD APPLICATION

COLLECT 8 TO WIN.

"Gaslight Gambit"

Place all cards face up. Watch the news or a political debate. The first player to verbally identify a bias being committed collects the card. BONUS: explain why the bias happened.

"Bias Baffle"

Players take turns describing a scenario from their personal or professional life without naming the bias. Player who guesses correctly collects the card.

LEVEL 4: ANALYSIS

"cognitive clash".

Players take turns choosing two cards that either amplify or counteract each other’s effect. Collect the cards if you successfully persuade the other players of your logical reasoning behind the pairing.

"Bias Breakthrough"

To collect a card, explain strategies we can take to mitigate or avoid the bias. Bonus: describe how implementing these strategies could lead to positive changes.

LEVEL 5: EVALUATE

LAY ALL CARDS FACE UP LEAST NUMBER WINS.

"BS Buster"

Review a social media post, ad, or an opinion article. Identify and summarize any sentences that use cognitive bias to persuade you to do or think a certain way. What impact could these have on readers' views or choices?

"Bias Beacon"

Come up with questions that would expose the bias (assumptions, flaw in thinking) in the identified sentences from above.

Take the Implicit Bias Quiz

Coming soon: bonus scenarios..

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Brain Training Games

Put your thinking skills to the test in this playlist full of mental exercises. Strategically build the largest city you can in City Blocks, get through 200 mazes in the game Maze, or corral all of the sheep to safety in Sheepdom.   

4 Pictures 1 Word

Fill Multicolor

Catch the Treasure

Tower of Colors

Pile Shapes

Pipe Master

Icy Purple Head 3

City Blocks

Maze Challenge

Batteries Inside

Constellation

Lost In The Maze

Puzlogic Slide

Brainy Warrior

Dark Light Swap

Death by Spell Check

Unstack Balls

Full Stacks

Number Drop

Color Hoops

Roll & Merge 3D

Incremental Memory

Memorize Fast

Word Search

Minesweeper

Color Memory

Peg Solitaire

Calculate This!

Dots and Boxes

Daily Crossword

Word Detector

Block the Pig

Tube Master

Daily Jumble

Pirates Match 3

Connect the Dots

Color Filler

Classic Mahjongg

Parking Panic

Related categories.

• Abstract Games
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• Classic Games
• Memory Games
• Money Games
• Number Games
• Figure It Out Games
• Endless Puzzle Games
• Thinking Games
• Match 3 Games

Frequently Asked Questions About Brain Games

Get ready for some seriously fun, seriously helpful brain games in our Brain Training Playlist! In this playlist, we have all kinds of different games, from puzzles to board games to mazes.

What exactly is a brain game?

Great question! A brain game is any game that is meant to challenge you mentally. While we try and make all of our games at Coolmath educational to some degree, brain games are more focused on challenging you with games that make you use your mind specifically. Your reactions and timing won’t matter so much in these, it is more about your strategy and critical thinking skills. A lot of the games on the Brain Training Playlist will be puzzle-based, such as Sudoku, Daily Crossword, and Unolingo. 

This is not to say that all of these games are traditional brain games. For example, Parking Panic is a pretty chaotic game where you will have to escape the parking lot by moving other cars. While it is still focused on critical thinking skills and memory, there is no shortage of thrills when it comes to playing this.

What are some of the most popular brain games?

Some of the most popular games on our Brain Training Playlist are 2048, Sudoku, and Chess. We have written blogs about all 3 of them, and you should go and check them out to learn more about the rules and strategies for these games on our Coolmath Games blog . We especially recommend reading our Chess blog due to chess being pretty complicated to learn and understand. 

Will these games actually help train my brain?

Video games have been proven to have benefits when played in moderation, especially those that involve using your creative and critical thinking skills. According to Dr. Peter Gray, video games can produce positive cognitive, motivational, and emotional benefits. To read more about the science behind video games, we have a blog written about it here . 

So go and get your brain churning with our Brain Training Playlist! Explore around, your brain will thank you for it.   

Mind by Design

21 Amazing thinking games for adults | Classic brain games

Thinking games for adults is the best way to train your brain. It not only improves your intellectual capacity but also sharpens up your skills and makes you more productive.

Thinking games for adults will help you to:

• It helps you in increasing your creativity and imagination.
• It increases your concentration skills.
• It improves your memory and information retention ability.
• It builds and repairs brain cells.

It helps you in making a decision quickly. It also sharpens up your thinking process by playing with logic and challenging yourself with puzzles, games, riddles, knowledge-based games etc.

In this post we will present 21 of the best thinking games for adults , so you can see and choose which one is best for you!

1. Mind Benders

Mind Benders by Martin Gardner is a game of logic and puzzles. This game is a collection of puzzle problems that include Zen koan questions, puzzles in geometry, and magic squares.

To play this game you need to solve the problems in order starting from easy to hard. Once you are done with answering the easy ones, you can move on to the next harder ones until you have finished all of them.

Sudoku, which means “single number”, is a popular logic game. It is a Japanese puzzle of numbers in which players must fill in the blanks so that each row, column, and region contain the digits 1 to 9 and no more than four of them are used together in each row, column, or region.

3. Flip Question

This game requires you to answer the questions in a logical way, without relying on any wrong information. It is kind of a simple puzzle involving finding the right order for the numbers that are shown from 1 to 80.

4. Logic Trails

Logic Trails is a game that requires you to follow a trail of logical deductions. The basic rules are:

• Be sure to not make any assumptions.
• Always start with an assumption.
• Weave logic from the given premises to the conclusion. What do you need more than anything else is to be sure that your answer is correct and values your ideas?

5. Hinge Puzzle

Hinge Puzzle is a classic game with a lot of challenging questions. It requires you to find the ways by which the three given figures can be connected into one figure, without lifting the puzzle apart and possibly disabling it from being completed.

6. Tower of Hanoi

Tower of Hanoi is a strategy game for 2 players who are trying to get their wooden disks on top of the tower filled with discs. One person moves the disks at a time, while the other player is trying to stop them.

7. 20 November 2012 Brain Teaser

From 20 November 2012, this puzzle will keep your brain working as it asks you to solve a riddle every time you look at it. Your mission is to find out what happened on this day by solving all kinds of riddles and puzzles.

Bamboo is a classic board game that requires you to move the tokens from start to finish in order. There will be various obstacles in the way that you must avoid in order to get your token moved. You can also use logic and help other players by giving them boosts on their way.

9. Labyrinth

This is a great strategy game that requires you to move your token by using the correct path among the colored labyrinths. You will have to start from easy ones and then move your way towards harder ones.

10. Monopoly Empire

Monopoly Empire is a fun logical game that requires you to build your empire in a realistic manner just as the original game does. The only thing is that this version requires you to build your empire from scratch.

11. Moondial

Moondial is a classic logic game that requires you to follow the instructions given to get the token through a maze of obstacles. You would have to start at easy ones and then move on to harder ones until you have completed all of them.

12. Transport

Transport is a logic game that allows you to race a vehicle in a puzzle-like scenario just like the original board game. The only difference between this version and the original one is that the puzzle will be solved with a vehicle rather than with trains.

13. Hangman’s Puzzle

This is an easy puzzle game that requires you to find out the letter that can form words from the given stack of letters, without using any letters twice in the same word. It is also great for improving your memory and attention skills.

14. The Alphabet Game

The Alphabet Game is a fun game that requires you to guess the letters by making use of your logic and knowledge. This game starts from the alphabet A and it will keep on going until you cannot guess it in any other way from any other letter. The aim is to try to guess them all!

15. Sudoku meets Asteroid

Excluding the differences in the rules, it is still a Sudoku game, you must fill up all the cells on a grid so that each row, column and region has only 1 to 9 numbers. The only difference here is that instead of using numbers 1 to 9, you will be using letters of the alphabet.

16. Letter Sequence

Letter Sequence is a fun puzzle game that requires you to identify the sequence in which the letters are given. The only difference is that they are not numbers but letters of the alphabet. This game will test your memory and attention skills as it requires you to remember them all.

17. Magic Square Puzzle

The magic square puzzle is a great thinking game that consists of square blocks filled with various letters. It will test your logical thinking skills as you have to find the square blocks that consist of some letters and use a combination of them to form a whole number.

18. Jigsaw Puzzle Fun

Like the original jigsaw puzzles, this version features over 15 different puzzles that feature animals like lions, kangaroos, sharks, dolphins, elephants and more. It requires you to put the puzzle pieces together in order so that there are no overlapping or missing pieces.

19. Alignment Game

Alignment Game is a great puzzle game that requires you to connect the dots on a grid to form various patterns. This game will test your memory and attention skills by asking you to solve the pattern without looking at the given grid.

20. Rubik’s Snake

Rubik’s Snake is another great logic game that will require you to find out a snake by rotating the blocks around it until it has become a snake again. The only thing is that this version is played with a snake instead of blocks and will test your logical thinking skills instead.

21. Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune is a logic game that requires you to match the letters on the wheel so that each letter on the wheel lands on an appropriate letter in the grid. It will test your memory and attention skills as it requires you to remember them all!

Conclusion – thinking games for adults

Playing thinking and puzzle games is not just a fun activity that the kids do. It is also a great way for adults to improve their memory, brainpower and logic skills . The best thing about these games is that they are fun to play and they require a lot of thinking as well.

These games will help you increase your IQ level by giving you the ability to make logical decisions in various situations without having to worry about the outcome. They also improve your problem-solving skills by testing and training them every time you play one of these games.

Playing these games can also help you to develop your logical reasoning and become better at making decisions in a more efficient manner. The best part about playing these games is that they are very fun!

Now that you have found out the best thinking and puzzle games for adults, it is time to try one of them and see for yourself how much your IQ has improved or how much better you have become at playing them.

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5 Brain Games to Grow Your Critical Reasoning Skills

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, in order to understand the logical connection between ideas and/or facts and to make a judgment accordingly. A well-developed set of critical reasoning skills builds self-empowerment and confidence and teaches a variety of skills that can be applied to any life situation.

Do you want to improve your critical thinking skills? Here are top 5 brain games you can play to grow your critical reasoning skills.

Can Brain Games Improve Cognitive Ability and Help Grow Your Critical Reasoning Skills?

No matter what you do, you need a set of decision-making and problem-solving skills ; And for that, you must be able to think critically and act quickly. Critical thinking is a valuable skill for all aspects of your life. It can help you understand yourself better, avoid any kind of negative or limiting beliefs, and focus more on your positive aspects. But the question is how can you improve your critical reasoning skills?

Can brain games enhance your critical thinking skills? The simple answer is yes; they can. These games are brain-training activities that can help you develop essential life skills and reasoning skills. Doing brain exercises can boost your memory, concentration, and focus.

Critical thinking entails carefully evaluating a situation, rationally structuring the problem, and using value judgments to devise a solution. It is an effective tool for any profession by forcing you to analyze things objectively. With artificial intelligence and automation taking over the world, having critical thinking skills can keep individuals relevant in the field.

However, it is difficult learning how to think and reason critically. As a result, some institutions encourage using brain games to develop critical reasoning skills. They are exercises that will turn anyone into a critical thinker.

5 Best Brain Games to Improve Your Critical Reasoning Skills

These are some of the best brain games to grow your critical reasoning skills and boost your brain power .

1. It’s a Mystery

Most people enjoy a good mystery, which is what forms the basis of this game. It teaches the importance of communication and decision-making in problem-solving. For example, a team is locked in a room, then finds the way out without breaking windows. It has to use items in the office to get out of the predicament.

This brain game is designed to solve a mystery by working on a daily puzzle page. Team members have to provide clues to find solutions to the unknown. The problem is to solve the clues, find a key and solve a mystery within the time allocated. As a team, work towards resolving the mystery together. Hence, there should be clear communication between team members to solve the challenge more effectively.

2. Dare to be different

This brain game focuses on using out-of-the-box thinking to come up with solutions to challenges. It encourages the use of critical reasoning to come up with an unconventional solution to a basic concept. You may need to brainstorm ideas before settling on the solution.

This game is a great way to grow critical reasoning skills by finding solutions to common problems. It will push you to approach problems in new and innovative ways of solving a problem. For example, start by coming up with solutions on eating spaghetti without using utensils. By thinking out of the box, you can devise solutions.

The game requires you to think in a new direction. You must take risks and be ready to make mistakes as you come up with solutions to problem-solving. The game involves a variety of aspects that lead to novel ideas and solutions.

3. Save the egg

Save the Egg is a fun little driving game that you can play in modern browsers for free. The game deals with saving a falling egg by thinking of solutions within a short time. Team members must work together to protect an egg by finding the perfect soft landing or creating a device that guides the egg to a safe landing. The game develops critical thinking by combining movement, coordination, and cognitive skills. It is designed to help build focus, behavior, and social-emotional skills.

In this game, use your intelligence to devise a viable solution and prevent the egg from falling. The game is an excellent way to improve your creative thinking and logic skills as it challenges your reaction time, attention, and memory. It helps develop quick critical reasoning skills to save a situation. You learn how to restore balance by keeping an egg from breaking. 

4. If you buil d it

Imagine is a visual and imaginative guessing game where players use the language of symbols to communicate. This brain game teaches flexibility as an aspect of critical reasoning. It is a team brain game with the common aim of working together to solve a problem. It focuses on problem-solving exercises that push a team to think on the spot and achieve the task at hand. The classic critical thinking brain game helps with creativity and focus.

For example, divide members into teams and give them the same material to construct something. A team that can work together to build a tower using sticks of uncooked spaghetti. The objective is to see which team can use the material provided to make the tallest structure within the shortest time. A team must build a tower that can stand on its own without support.

The game can also involve coming up with a story from a unique image. Start with a picture of an animal or object and try to tell a story about it. In a team game, individuals work together to build something from an image using innovative techniques.

5. Mi nefield

Mine field is another crucial brain game that helps in team-building. It entails arranging an obstacle course, blindfolding someone, and requiring them to move through the obstacles. Other members can guide their teammates using some clues as they navigate the minefield. You must work together with others to solve problems. It requires coming up with a solution that ensures navigating through the obstacles without knocking them down.

The more adaptable team is likely to be productive in this game. You are testing the ability to overcome change with more ease using critical reasoning skills. This is because a team needs valuable qualities to succeed in the minefield.

The Bottom Line

Critical thinking can improve your creativity in the long run. Whether brainstorming ideas or creatively solving a problem, these brain games will lead you to better solutions. They are designed to build critical reasoning skills while facilitating team building. Therefore, you get more than critical thinking skills to learn problem-solving, collaboration, and communication. There is always room for improvement when developing these skills if you take part in many exercises.

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7 Games for Critical Thinking that Add Play to Your Day

Let’s talk about the importance of PLAY and games in our classrooms today. Do you agree with the following?

Learning should be fun.

Learning should be engaging.

Learning should be JOYFUL!

I thought so! For children (and adults) play is a key the way the brain learns. When our students complete puzzles, they are working on problem-solving skills. When they play a game with rules to follow, they are learning how to cooperate and interact with others. When they play against an opponent, they are learning how to develop strategies, predict outcomes, and use logical thinking skills.  What a better way to squeeze in play than with critical thinking games in the classroom? In this post, I’ll share seven of my favorite critical thinking games for primary students.

For your convenience, I’ve added links to the materials I talk about within the blog post. These are Amazon Affiliate links. This just means Amazon tosses a few cents my way if you make a purchase with the links – at absolutely, positively, no extra cost to you! These little links help me to continue sharing ideas, freebies, and giveaways with you on the site. 

Finding Time for Games in the Classroom

Time. It’s a four-letter word that teachers across the world have a love-hate relationship with. “There’s not enough time!” is a phrase one will frequently hear from a kindergarten teacher as much as a middle school teacher. We know that our students need time to play and have fun in school. We know that games promote SO MANY wonderful skills and brain-friendly challenges for our students.  In addition to Pinterest, teaching blogs, IG, and educational websites, I like to turn to the shelves of stores such as Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us for critical thinking games that my students will love to play! There are TONS of educational and high-quality games that you can find pre-assembled and ready to go- for a great price! So, when can we squeeze games into the classroom? Below are some of my favorite times to add board games and mind-challenging games into our schedule:

• Morning Work
• Small Groups
• Indoor Recess
• Friday Game Days (Use small group time or morning work time for games!)
• Math Centers
• Literacy Centers
• Word Work Centers

Teaching Students How to Play

It’s important to model how to play each game with your students. The critical thinking games I am going to share in this post take a lot of brain energy! They are designed to be fun- but challenging- for your students. As a result, don’t expect students to pick up how to play instantly and be able to independently play the games right away. I like to model and play the games with my students at the small group table. For example, every time I introduce a new Brainamin short or long vowel game as a word work center for my students, we play it at the small group table. I do this for math and literacy centers, too.  In this way, I can correctly show students the materials, the rules, and I can even play with them to model my thinking and let them hear what I am thinking as I strategize my next moves and make decisions throughout the game. When students have had ample time to play and see how the game works WITH you, they will be more confident and have more fun when they play with their friends and classmates.

Organizing Your Games

Whenever possible, I like to get rid of the boxes the games come in and put them into plastic tubs. The boxes just seem to deteriorate over time, and the lids on the plastic bins help us keep everything tidy and organized. I use many of my critical thinking games during morning work time on Mondays and Fridays and during math and literacy centers. (On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays we use my See, Think, Wonder, Write routine for morning work .) I will be sharing more about my morning tub time (or what I like to call, Brain Bins) in future blog posts. For now, you can find the bins I use to store my critical thinking games in the links below. You’ll find two sizes of bins. For games that have a board game to them, I like to use the larger, flatter bins. For card games or other critical thinking materials such as the toys and activities I mentioned in this post , I use the medium bins because they take up less space and are really deep!

Medium Bins:

Now, let’s get started learning about seven really fun games that you can use for centers in your classroom. These games will challenge your students’ minds, while encouraging them to use problem-solving, critical thinking, logical thinking, deductive reasoning skills, and most importantly, have fun learning!

Hoot Owl Hoot

If you teach little ones, Hoot Owl Hoot is a MUST. Hoot Owl Hoot is designed by a company called Peaceable Kingdom. This is an award-winning game that focuses on cooperative play. (The game won the  Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award.) The object of the game is to help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun comes up. Students use color cards to move the owls closer to the nest. If they draw a sun card, they are one step closer to daylight. The BEST part of this game? EVERYONE wins! That’s right. The students must work together to get all of the owls to their nest. Whether you have a preschooler at home or teach kindergarten or first grade, this is a great game for kids! On top of the cooperative play, students have to use problem-solving skills and shared decision-making skills to be successful. It’s truly a wonderful game that challenges little ones’ thinking skills while having fun with friends!

SEQUENCE LETTERS

Sequence Letters is a game designed for ages 4-7, making it the perfect literacy and word work center for the kindergarten and first-grade classroom. To play, students name the letter on their card, say the sound for that letter, and then match it to a picture on the board that begins with that letter sound. The object is to get five of your game tokens in a row on the board. Can we talk about how perfect this game is for an intervention group or kindergarten small reading lesson?! What I love even more is that the letter cards feature the letter in both uppercase and lowercase, so students are seeing both forms every time they play. Sequence Letters is a game that every primary teacher needs to add to their classrooms!

SEQUENCE FOR KIDS

Sequence for Kids is another version in the Sequence games line-up. This is a great critical thinking game for students who cannot yet read, and it makes the perfect indoor recess game for strategy skills! At first, the initial concept of the game seems TOO easy: Students simply place a token on the picture on the board that matches the picture on their card. When a player gets four tokens in a row, he or she wins. Don’t let this game fool you! There is a lot of thinking-rich strategy skills involved when playing this game. You see, in addition to the picture cards, there are also unicorn and dragon cards. A unicorn card allows you to place your game token anywhere on the board. A dragon card allows you to remove an opponent’s game token. Now, you’ve got a game that involves some “if this…then that” thinking! Which, my friends, are the games I love for kids! You can find Sequence for Kids below:

Brain-Freeze

If you don’t own Brain-Freeze , RUN and get it! It is not only engaging, fun, and child-friendly, but it is the perfect strategy game for young students ages 5 and up. Brain-Freeze reminds me of a cooler version of Guess Who for kids. It also builds mental skills such as memory, deductive-reasoning, and strategy skills. It received multiple awards for children and only takes about 15 minutes to play. That amount of playing time makes it an ideal game to place in a literacy center or math center for kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students. To play, one child chooses a sweet treat off of the “menu” and circles characteristics of the treat on their game board. The other child guesses and asks questions about what the sweet treat is, just like in the game, Guess Who? Using a dry-erase marker, the player who is guessing crosses out and eliminates different choices based on the clues and the answers the first player gives. The object is to correctly guess the sweet treat the first player secretly chose at the beginning of the game. This game is also wonderful for asking questions and using inference skills! Find it here:

Let’s move on to some more challenging games. These next few games are great for second-grade and up. On the Dot is a challenging puzzle game that requires focus, creative thinking, and an ability to look at things from new perspectives. It’s a true brainteaser that students will love! To play, students choose two transparent cards. The cards have colored dots on them. The student must rotate, flip, turn, or overlap the cards in order to get the dots on both cards to match up. This game is great for building and practicing logical thinking, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving. With 60 different puzzles to match up, On the Dot is a game that can stay in your bins for a long time!

Swish is a game designed for ages 8 and up. It reminds me of On the Dot with transparent cards and colored hoops, or circles. Players take turns stacking and matching up the colored cards. When a match is made, the player keeps both cards. The player with the most matches wins. After playing this game a few times, I decided the Swish Junior game would be the best version to start with in the primary classroom. The pace would go faster and kindergarten and first-grade students would feel more confident and successful. In the Junior version (ages 5+), players layer or stack two or more transparent cards to make a match. The cards have shapes on them in various colors and sizes, making it a much better game for primary students! The Junior version would be great for building spatial reasoning skills and promoting shape recognition. You can find the Swish Junior version below:

For my last critical thinking game, I can’t get enough of my Brainamin games! In this post, I’ll feature the CVC-e and long vowel edition , but I also have a Brainamin Short Vowel Bundle and a B rainamin Vowel Teams Bundle available, too. This is one of the best games to add to a morning tub or literacy center, and it’s certainly fun to use as a small group warm-up game! If you have students who are struggling with  decoding and phonics skills, these games also make a nice change of pace for an intervention group. To play, students flip over two cards: a word card, and a picture card. The students will scan the cards and find the matching word and picture, as shown below:

There is only one match, so the students must think fast and be the first person to find it. The student who finds the match first gets to keep both cards in his or her pile. The student who has the most matches in his or her pile at the end of the game wins. (You can also just play for fun and not keep “score” using the matches.) Let’s play again. Can you find the matching word and picture in the cards shown below?

SO fun, right?! What I love MOST about Brainamin is that you can play with a group of students, or with just two students. In fact, students can even play against themselves as an independent game as they race to find the matches among the deck of cards. Brainamin not only improves phonics skills but it also works on visual discrimination skills, critical thinking skills, deductive reasoning, decoding, and fluency for word recall. You can find the different Brainamin bundles and games that I have available by below:

• Brainamin Short Vowels (cvc words)
• Brainamin Long Vowels (cvc-e words)
• Brainamin Vowel Teams
• …more to come in the future!

Try Brainamin for FREE!

You can learn more about critical thinking AND get a FREE Brainamin Short A game pack in a blog post I wrote by clicking HERE or on the blog post image below:

I hope you enjoyed learning about these seven games for critical thinking in the primary classroom! I know they will add fun, play, and lots of great thinking skills into your classroom routine. In order to save this post for later or share it with a colleague, feel free to use the image below to PIN IT on Pinterest !

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One Comment

Loved all the games which you have shared with us. Perfect way to engage kids in such fun games for long hours which helps to nurture their overall growth. In this world of technology. where kids are inclined more towards playing online or video games, which affects their physical as well as mental growth. I think it the responsibility of parents to involve kids in games or activities which helps to improve their overall development. Saved your entire list of games to incorporate these in regular kids play. Thanks for sharing such an awesome list of games with us.

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Wealth of Geeks

Train Your Brain: 23 Games To Improve Brain Health

Posted: May 11, 2024 | Last updated: May 11, 2024

In the 2000s, Nintendo released a game called  Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!  The concept was simple: you’d perform simple tasks to improve your brain health. The game was a huge success, which led to people looking for more ways to stimulate their minds. 

Brain games are useful for busy folks who want to dedicate some time to challenging themselves and staying sharp.

These apps are tailored to enhance memory and logic, helping users work towards better brain health. 

1. MentalUP

MentalUP improves cognitive abilities crucial for academic and professional success, including memory, attention span, and critical thinking. There are 150+ games designed by experts, offering enjoyable brain training in just 15 minutes a day.

With a focus on effectiveness and efficiency, MentalUP is a valuable tool for adults seeking to refine their cognitive abilities for better performance in studies and careers.

2. NeuroNation

Anyone who suffers from a short attention span knows how detrimental it can be in situations of learning, working, and everyday conversations.

NeuroNation focuses on inattentiveness and fortifies concentration with over 30 personalized brain training exercises. The games help with mental speed, clarity, memory, and more.

Need to improve your problem-solving skills? Peak is the answer. Choose from multiple games targeting memory, language, mental agility, and problem-solving.

It’s a great option offering daily challenges and leaderboards, encouraging competition and motivation. 

4. CogniFit

You can receive personalized exercises based on your unique strengths and weaknesses with CogniFit .

It offers a range of interesting games and exercises specific to your cognitive strengths and weaknesses, making it suitable for individuals of different ages, including teens. 

5. Brainwell

Brainwell offers a variety of fun games such as Match the Pairs, Odd Man Out, Spot It, Castle Climb, and more to target mental skills like memory, vocabulary, and logical reasoning.

Players can also enjoy challenges like mental math marathons, which test mental calculation speed and response inhibition. Brainwell provides a comprehensive brain-training experience in a user-friendly app with a range of activities suitable for different cognitive abilities.

MindPal creates a specialized training program based on your needs and personal goals. You’ll find a variety of fun and interactive educational games designed to test and improve attention, memory, language, and other skills.

The app features over 35 distinct games designed to build up specific cognitive functions. 

The Eidetic app stands out because it enhances memory through spaced repetition and visualization techniques.

Eidetic builds your mind with strategic drills for lasting recall and mental clarity. Its primary aim is to assist users in memorizing essential information like vocabulary, facts, quotes, and more.

8. Magnus Chess Academy

Elevate your chess skills with Chess Academy , an app designed for players of all levels. You can choose games, puzzles, and lessons that help with strategic thinking and improve decision-making.

Research suggests that chess players often perform better academically and professionally due to the mental discipline and analytical thinking skills developed through the game.

9. Memorado

Using games to refine memory, focus, and problem-solving capabilities, Memorado transforms your downtime into a fun, brain-boosting session.

Try the challenges that sharpen your mind and promote cognitive growth. The app has an engaging interface and receives generally good reviews on Google Play. 

10. BrainHQ

Developed on the concept of brain plasticity, BrainHQ offers exercises targeting Memory, Attention, Speed, People Skills, and Intelligence, supported by extensive clinical research. Users receive personalized training options and feedback on their performance, with recommended daily sessions of 30 minutes three times a week.

While well-suited for adults and seniors seeking cognitive improvement, the app may lack integrative feedback on progress, and the free trial may not fully represent its capabilities compared to the paid version.

11. Lumosity

Lumosity offers a lot of different brain-training activities designed to boost memory, attention, and problem-solving. Users can participate in numerous challenges, from remembering sequences of numbers to improving focus and reaction times.

Thankfully, the games are enjoyable and engaging, making them feel more like gaming and less like studying. Additionally, the solid neuroscience supporting the platform is encouraging.

12. Elevate

Elevate is your go-to if you want to strengthen your reading, writing, math, and listening. This software customizes challenges to make learning more engaging.

You also get detailed performance tracking and insights to monitor your progress and adjust your training regimen accordingly. 

13. Brain It On!

Brain It On! allows users to have fun with problem-solving puzzles that spark logical thinking. The app gives you puzzles where you draw shapes to solve challenges—it’s all about using your creativity.

The puzzles get trickier as you progress, but that keeps things interesting. Each puzzle has multiple ways to solve it, so you can get creative and share your solutions with others in the game’s community.

14. Mind Games

With a focus on memory, reasoning, and attention, Mind Games presents a collection of brain training activities.

You can enjoy several free games and try out others three times for free, but beyond that, you’ll have to pay extra to continue playing. The app also tracks and evaluates your scores to pinpoint your strengths and deficiencies.

Wordle is a popular word game boasting over one million downloads on Google Play. I’ve personally tried this one, and I love the daily puzzle, where you attempt to unravel the five-letter word with six guesses while building social connections through sharing and comparing results.

Aside from the daily challenge, you can do timed word challenges or test your skills in “secret word” mode, all of which stimulate vocabulary, memory, and problem-solving skills. 

Sudoku, a classic puzzle game, improves logical thinking and pattern recognition skills. By solving Sudoku puzzles, players do mental exercises that strengthen their concentration and attention to detail.

The varying difficulty levels ensure a constant challenge, making Sudoku an effective way to maintain and improve cognitive function.

17. A Clockwork Brain

Featuring mini-games, Clockwork improves memory, language, attention, dexterity, and reasoning skills. Indulge in over 15 fun and stimulating games and daily training sessions that push you to reach new heights.

Earn Tokens while playing to unlock special Game Modes and Upgrades, and enlist the help of powerful Petbots to elevate your gameplay. You can also track your progress with weekly and monthly graphs and view detailed statistics related to brain functioning along the way. 

18. Checkers

Checkers is an excellent brain training game, requiring strategic thinking and planning to outmaneuver opponents.

Playing checkers enhances problem-solving skills and promotes spatial awareness as players anticipate moves and assess board positions. The simple rules make it accessible to all ages, yet the game’s depth offers ample opportunities for mental stimulation.

19. Brain Games – Left vs Right

Left vs Right challenges you with games centered around six major areas of the brain: Adaptability, Awareness, Reasoning, Reflex, Patience, and Precision. What’s cool about this app is that it contains activities that revitalize your mind logically and facilitate creativity, making it a holistic brain workout for a well-rounded cognitive boost.

With more than 50 games and a progress tracker, you could begin to notice incremental improvements the more you train. 

20. Dakim BrainFitness

Dakim BrainFitness is a software program geared toward users aged 50 and above, offering a wide array of exercises enriched with videos, graphics, and music to enhance brain health.

It’s unavailable on Android, but Apple users can try the app version. The program is often used by older adults to combat age-related cognitive decline, but it can benefit people of all ages.

21. Brain Wars

This one is really fun if you’re competitive. Brain Wars pits two players against each other in an online mental duel, with victory going to the quicker thinker. Duels feature four distinct and randomly chosen tests, evaluating mental speed and math prowess within a tight thirty-second window.

Players must concentrate on outscoring their opponent in each test, whether it involves rapid calculations or other cognitive challenges. The winner emerges based on who accomplishes the most tasks within the given time frame.

22. Brain Dots

Brain Dots is your go-to puzzle-solving game when you want to pass the time. It sparks creative thinking and hones in on problem-solving skills. Players have to connect two dots using lines drawn with one finger.

According to user reviews, overcoming obstacles and solving physics-based puzzles are key elements of the challenge, which can be frustrating. Still, it is ultimately a satisfying experience when you successfully link the dots.

23. Tricky Test 2: Genius Brain?

Tricky Test 2 has over 100 puzzles where players must decipher misleading instructions to interact with on-screen elements creatively. You’ll have to step it up with your out-of-the-box thinking skills.

As puzzles advance, they become more challenging, demanding mathematical insights or weird usage of your device. You can use in-game currency for hints or solutions if you get stuck.

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Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?

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Video Game News, Lists & Guides

29 Best Nintendo Switch Puzzle Games To Exercise The Brain

Put on your thinking caps!

#29 Mario vs Donkey Kong

#28 super mario rpg, #27 hogwarts legacy, #26 pikmin 4, #25 unpacking, #24 far changing tides, #23 the gardens between, #22 the room series, #21 gorogoa, #20 bridge constructor portal, #19 unravel two, #18 the trine series, #17 baba is you, #16 the talos principle, #15 snipperclips: cut it out, together, #14 relicta, #12 little nightmares 2, #11 captain toad: treasure tracker, #10 12 minutes, #8 world of goo, #7 return of the obra dinn, #6 keep talking and nobody explodes, #5 the sexy brutale, #4 portal series, #3 puyo puyo tetris, #2 thimbleweed park, #1 tetris 99.

If you’ve been enjoying the Nintendo Switch, you’ll know that there are all sorts of genres for you to play on the system in great number. And if you like puzzles? Yeah, they got hat in droves as these games will show you.

Platform: Switch Release Date: February 16, 2024

If you never got the chance to play  Mario vs Donkey Kong  on the Nintendo DS, you’re in luck, as the game has been remade for the Nintendo Switch!

The game will put you in over 100 levels filled with challenges, all so you can get back the Mini-Mario toys that Donkey Kong has stolen! But it won’t be as easy as simply finding all the toys. You’ll need to work your way through various challenges to reach them, and then, you’ll need to get them to safety! Sometimes, you’ll even need to guide whole scores of Mini-Marios to the exit!

With new levels and challenges, now is the perfect time to jump in!

Platform: November 17, 2023 Release Date: Switch

You might not think that  Super Mario RPG  is a “puzzle game,” and it’s not in the overall, but there are puzzles in the world to solve.

Not to mention, you have to worry about the “puzzles” that await you in combat! The game will maintain its classic turn-based combat but will also feature plenty of challenges within it that’ll test your timing and skill in figuring out how to exploit the enemies within!

So, while it may be an RPG, that doesn’t mean you can’t put your puzzle brain to the test by playing it! After all, it’s a remake of a classic title. What’s not to love?

Platform: PC PS5 XSX|S – February 10, 2023 | PS4 Xbox One – May 05, 2023 Release Date: Switch November 14, 2023

Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo

Many people would say that the most important thing about being a witch or wizard is being able to use powerful spells and curses. But the wise ones among you will state that it’s about how you use those spells and whether you can use them to your advantage in multiple scenarios.

As you travel throughout the world of Hogwarts Legacy, you’ll have to face trials, not dangerous in nature but puzzling. So think like the educated student you are and use spells to move objects or erase obstacles from your path.

The more puzzles you solve, the further you’ll get to explore!

Platform: Switch Release Date: July 21, 2023

It’s easy to picture the Pikmin as just tools to use or beings to throw at foes to get them out of your way. But as  Pikmin 4  reminds you, you’ll need to use them and other entities wisely if you wish to get around the alien world you’ve crash landed upon.

At first, you’ll be restricted to certain areas, and you’ll need to use the Pikmin to open new paths, collect “treasures” to fix your ship, and fight off against familiar figures in Dandori battles to rescue your lost squad mates.

So don’t think of Pikmin as expendable. Instead, think of them as your most useful tool for getting out alive!

As the name suggests, this unique puzzle game tasks players with helping to unpack a person’s belongings after a move. Beginning in 1997, Unpacking follows the same person across several moves and many different years. From childhood to college to relationships, players will gain clues about the person’s life and experiences by looking at their belongings. Play casually to enjoy the story or search for all the hidden achievements for an added challenge.

A sequel of sorts to Far Lone Sails , Far Changing Tides puts you on a large boat, where a young man is trying to sail it in order to get to a new place for him to live in a world that has been nearly flooded.

The puzzles here lie in both the world around you, as you’ll need to activate certain things to open paths to get your boat through, as well as your ship itself. Dive deep into the vessel to figure out what it is all about, how to operate it correctly, and more.

It’s you and your ship against the world, and you’ll find that this adventure will take you to highs and lows while also giving you a unique atmospheric experience.

For a more lighthearted adventure, you might want to try out The Gardens Between . Because this single player title puts you in a story that focuses on “time, memory and friendship.”

You play as Arina and Frendt, two friends who fall into a “dream world”, and that world just so happens to be filled with relics from their time together as friends. Now, you’ll control the two friends and work together to solve puzzles to figure out more about their friendship, what they really mean to one another, and more.

It’s a very unique title that delves deep into its narrative, so you might just want to play it to see where the “bittersweet” story goes…and ends.

The Room Series is for those who like a deep approach to their puzzle titles while also twisting the perceptions of what those games can be. Because in the game, and the many that follow, you’ll be a person locked in a room, or dimensional space, and you’ll be left with nothing but puzzle boxes and clues as to what you need to do.

With each puzzle you solve, your “world” grows a little bigger, but then again, so does the mystery. You’ll learn about various sciences and dark practices and wonder how it’ll all going to end. More than likely…you won’t be able to guess…

With multiple games in the series, you’ll be able to try them on Switch and have plenty to do for a while.

There has long been an argument about whether “games are art”, and the answer is very obviously, “yes”. But if you want a game that very much proves that feeling, you need to look no further than Gorogoa .

Because in this game, you’ll be solving puzzles within a very special narrative, the twist is that these puzzles are tied to illustrations (thousands of them) that were made by a singular man: Jason Roberts. How you use these illustrations/art pieces will depend on the puzzle and what you’re trying to do.

The visual style here is truly unique, as is how you use it all gameplay-wise. So if you want a truly visual yet deep puzzle experience, here you go!

Combining elements from both the Portal universe and the Bridge Constructor series, Bridge Constructor Portal is an engineering puzzle game. As the name implies, players must construct bridges to transport trucks around Aperture Laboratories. Any bridge that withstands one truck passing over it will solve the challenge, but for a higher rating, all the trucks in the convoy must successfully cross. In addition, the cost of building each bridge is calculated, and players are challenged to keep their costs as low as possible.

After a shipwreck, two Yarnys (creatures whose bodies are made of wound-up yarn) connect their loose yarn ends. This binds the two together and creates a magical spark, which the players must chase. Using the yarn of their characters to climb, swing, and pull objects, players solve puzzles across the game’s island setting while uncovering a surprisingly dark story about children fleeing from abusive adults.

Set in a fantasy world, the Trine games focuses on a set of heroes who use an object known as the Trine in order to solve puzzles and fight evil. All so that they can save the kingdom they’re in.

The twist here is that unlike typical fantasy games, the combat and other elements are all tied to physics based puzzles. Each of the main characters for examples have skills that will affect things in a way that can solve puzzles or send objects at enemies to bust them up.

Because of the freedom and the skills of your characters, there are multiple ways to solve puzzles in the series. Plus, since there are 4 different games in the series, that’s a lot of puzzles to go and solve.

As an evil man once said, “True power is warping reality around you,” and that is a perfect lead-in to the title Baba Is You . Because in this game, every level you play you can change the rules of the game and the reality you play in.

That’s because the “rules” are displayed in blocks, if you change them, everything changes with it. And that means that anything and everything can happen depending on how you want to play things.

Plus, with 200+ levels for you to “bend the rules in”, that’s a lot of potential and possibility for chaos! In the fun way, of course.

So jump into Baba Is You and see just how you can change the world!

Sometimes the best puzzle games are the ones that make you ask the questions of all that is going on. In The Talos Principle , you are an entity in a world of ancient ruins…but also modern technology. The one who built you put you on a “mission” to solve over 120 puzzles scattered throughout the place.

But the question becomes…will you do it as your master wants? Or, will you try and solve the puzzles to learn more about yourself and then seek a way to escape?

The Talos Principle has a deep and twisting story that will ask a lot of big questions, all the while having you enjoy the puzzle-solving experience.

In this co-op puzzle game, players will snip and clip the paper bodies of their co-op partners to create different shapes to solve puzzles (for example, cutting a pointed shape to pop balloons). The game’s World mode allows one or two players, while the Blitz and Party modes allow up to four players. Party mode features puzzle challenges designed for more players. Blitz mode ups the ante with snipping deathmatches alongside games like basketball and hockey.

In this M-rated, first-person puzzle game, players will use magnetism and gravity to solve physics-based challenges. After being stranded on a moon base, a top-level physicist searches for her daughter while also confronting the truth behind her own research. Players can simply solve the puzzles or take their time exploring, fleshing out the story of this 22nd-century world and perhaps changing the destiny of humanity itself.

Arguably one of the best puzzle games ever made, Fez puts you in the role of Gomez, who is a 2D creature…that all of a sudden gets “revealed” the third dimension. Curious about what is going on, Gomez sets out on a journey to figure out the truth, leading to a large puzzle adventure you’ll enjoy.

Unlike many on this list, Fez doesn’t need “over the top” or even ‘super realistic” graphics to get things done. The visual style is simple for a reason, and it lends to the deep world that the game is trying to portray in its own way.

Trust me, the game is deeper than you realize, and so if you haven’t check this game out yet…you should.

There are some rather dark titles on this list as you’ve seen so far, and Little Nightmares 2 is another example of that.

In this sequel, you’ll play as Mono, who ends up in a nightmare world full of distortions and monsters. The reason for this is a signal tower, and it’s up to you and another named Six to reach the tower and figure out what is going on.

You’ll have to get the two characters to work together to not just solve puzzles, but fight off the various creatures that inhabit the dark and mysterious areas you’ll travel to.

This is definitely a title for those who prefer a very spooky element to their games. So try out Little Nightmares 2 is that fits your style.

It took us a while, but here indeed is a 1st-party puzzle game. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was first released on the Wii U, but ported to the Switch (like so many games before it…and after it…) so that more people could try it out. And you should absolutely do so.

You’ll play as…who else? Captain Toad! And in each level you’ll need to use all the camera angles and perspectives to figure out how to get from one spot to the next, get all the treasure, and avoid enemies and traps!

You can even play in co-op to have someone help you out with those enemies! It’s a lighthearted and simple title, but at times…isn’t that what we really need?

This top-down game boasts the voice talents of James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe. A husband and wife are celebrating the news that she is expecting their first child when a man claiming to be a cop arrives at the apartment. The man accuses the wife of murdering her father, and in the ensuing struggle, both the husband and wife are killed. The husband then wakes up moments before the man’s arrival. As the husband, players must use the time loop to save their wife and determine the truth about the death of the wife’s father.

It’s honestly hard to describe a game like Inside without diving deep into spoilers, so I’ll try and keep it light.

In this game, from the creative team of PlayDead, who made the equally dark and praised title Limbo , you’ll find yourself as a young boy who is drawn to a certain building where a “dark project” is being done.

What exactly is going on here? That’s for you to figure out in this narrative-driven puzzle title. You’ll have to make it through the confines of the building, solve puzzles, avoid detection, and learn the truth. But as these games like to show…sometimes it’s best if the truth…isn’t revealed at all.

Here’s another classic that was eventually brought over to the Switch. World of Goo puts you in control of living glob entities that you can both get and then place in order to build various things. Like what? Bridges, buildings, slingshots, and more. As long as you have the right structure, and amount of goo, you can make it.

Why do you need to do it? Because the game’s levels are all meant to do something specific, and you have to get your goo creatures to build the right kind of structure to complete the task.

It might sound simple, but it’s not. Each level is special, and can even have dangers for your goo creatures. So use them wisely, and get to the next challenge!

In 1803, the Obra Dinn set sail around the Cape of Good Hope with 60 people on board, but the ship never arrived at its destination. Five years later, it has mysteriously washed up at the port with all its passengers and crew either dead or missing. In this “1-bit” gorgeously-stylized, first-person game, players assume the role of an investigator and search the ship to try to determine what happened to the Obra Dinn . They are aided by the Memento Mortem, a device that lets them go back in time to witness a person’s final moments.

In this multiplayer puzzle game, communication is key. While one player (the Defuser) attempts to disarm a bomb, the others (the Experts) must read the instruction manual and convey the proper procedures for doing so. Neither party can see the other’s screen, so players are forced to rely on each other to disarm the bomb as a team. And if the bomb’s timer reaches zero, everyone explodes.

A party in a mansion has gone horribly wrong. All the party-goers are dead except for Lafcadio Boone, a preacher. Boone is stuck in a time loop, reliving the party over and over again, looking for a way to prevent the deaths of the party goers. In this single-player puzzle game, players must explore the mansion, gain new abilities, and decipher how to save the party guests. Along the way, they’ll uncover the truth about the guests, Boone, and the party itself.

…so, who wants some cake?

The Portal Series is indeed on Switch, and Switch players are lucky to have this title as it’s one of the most important puzzle franchises ever made.

In it, you are stuck in Aperture Labs, and an evil robotic entity known as GLaDOS is “guiding you” through the place in order to complete various tests. You won’t have a weapon in the game to help you though, all you have…is your portal gun.

The puzzles, creativity, and feel of this series is S-tier in every way, and that’s part of what makes it so great to play over and over again. And now that you can play it on the go…you have even more reason to try it out on Switch.

I’ll admit that I’m a little bias with this game because it’s something I found really fun even though I didn’t know what Puyo Puyo was.

Basically, this game is a fusion of two worlds of puzzle games complete with adorable and hilarious characters that interact with one another to try and save the universe! And naturally, you’ll save it by playing Puyo or Tetris against other characters and even against one another.

There’s a lot of depth in this game believe it or not, and that makes it all the more enjoyable to play not just the story modes, but all the other game modes.

There’s two games in the series on Switch, so don’t miss out!

Developed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, this point-n-click puzzle game is a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island . A pair of FBI agents arrive in the town of Thimbleweed Park to investigate a murder, but not all is as it seems in Thimbleweed Park. Using commands like “pick up” and “talk to,” players navigate the town while collecting evidence and interviewing suspects to uncover the truth behind the murder and the town itself.

There are a lot of reasons why I’m putting Tetris 99 on top despite it not being a “typical puzzle game”. But in point of fact, Tetris as a whole IS a puzzle game. You’re trying to fit the pieces together (like a puzzle) in order to get points and keep going.

In Tetris 99 , the difficulty is ramped up because you’re going to be facing off against 98 other players who are trying to not just beat you, but bury you in Tetris blocks.

So you’ll have to play fast AND play smart so you can trip them up before they do it to you, as well as get out of any sticky situations you find yourself in.

Do well enough, and you’ll be No.1!

About Todd Black