Two Brain Games

I am not a gamer. Although I played the usual old games on my first computer back in the mid-80s, I have never been much of a gamer. Back then I played Pole Position, Frogger, Pacman, and others. But I never played them very well. Perhaps okay-ish way back then but nothing great and probably not even good.

These days I play two games on my iPad, mostly just one round of both per day and sometimes not even that. And they're not real games but just the quick hit mental stimulation kinds.

One is Sudoku. I hadn't played for quite some time but, about a month ago, I downloaded the app on a whim. I like how the game is set up and the way you can make notes if you like. (I should have put some notes in this screengrab.)

It has four levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. I don't bother with Expert unless it comes up in the daily puzzle. I figure it just takes too much time and effort to bother, and the other levels give me all the brain workout that I require.  I play Easy without making notes, just trying to keep it all in my head. I do the same for Medium, and I usually manage, but some Mediums are as Hard as Hard, and I resort to notes.

The other game is Wordscapes. It's a word scramble where you try to make words out of a jumble of 6 or 7 letters; you know the type. But it comes in crossword format, so there are clues of a sort; as you guess an across word, for example, you will have a letter for a down word, and you will know how many letters it contains. I completed part of the following puzzle to demonstrate.

I discovered the game and showed it to Sue. She has since played it much more than I have. Sue showed it to her sister, Heather, who is a tad compulsive, and she actually finished the game. Well, so did Sue afterward, but then they added more levels, so Sue keeps playing. You can see that I lag behind, being only on level 399. However, the game of the day doesn't count in the levels, and this is often the only game that I play ... if that. I'm therefore not sure how many actual games I have played, and I have also done a few hundred on the phone.

Of the two, I prefer Sudoku. I am more of a convergent and logical thinker, so it suits me. Even with the clues that you get from the crossword approach, Wordscapes is more of a game for divergent thinkers or creative types. Although I manage, I find it more tedious.

But I try to believe that they are both good for the brain and are worth investing a half hour or whatever a day if I have the time. If you have an iPad or iPhone, you might find one or both worth your while too.