Wake Up Your Brain With These Games

Feel like your brain is in a bit of a mid-afternoon slump? If caffeine can’t cure it and you got enough sleep last night then the chances are your brain just needs a little stimulation.

Challenging games and puzzles can provide our brains with enough stimulation to wake them up, get them out of their slump, and leave you feeling like you stand a chance of being productive with the rest of your working day. We’ve got four games that require different types of intelligence to progress in them, so you can see which one your brain is best at.

Chess

Chess is the ultimate brain workout and has been since the 1st century! Whether you’re playing on a physical board against an actual person, or on a computer against a chess-robot, your brain is going to have its logical and strategic capabilities stretched. If you’ve never played before, then don’t get frustrated if you suffer a bout of losses in the beginning. Once you’ve worked out how all of the pieces move and learned a little about opening strategies, you’ll start to see your results changing, hopefully for the better.

Civilization VI

Our next game is a little better suited to those who enjoy gameplay that’s more in line with modern video games. Civilization VI is a strategy game that’s available on PC, Mac, and Mobile, so it’s great whether you’re on the computer at home, or on the move. This game requires you to build a strong civilization, by utilizing strategic resources, leveraging the productivity of your citizens, and making solid choices that will see you rise above the levels of the other civilizations that you’re playing against. It’s a deeply strategic turn-based game, so will suit masterminds with a great capacity for logic.

Poker

Poker is the perfect game if you’re an all-rounder when it comes to intelligence. This game requires social intelligence, to tell if people are bluffing, mathematical intelligence, to work out your probabilities, and patience, to make sure you don’t jump the gun and blow your chances. If you’re struggling to get to grips with the rules of the game then there’s no shame in using a poker cheat sheet whilst you get the hang of things. Knowing at a glance what the hand rankings are will help you to commit them to memory for the future.

Wordle

Wordle has taken the world by storm. It’s a seemingly simple word puzzle that’s released once per day on the New York Times website. The aim of the game is to guess the five-letter word in six tries or fewer. To do so, you insert your guess and see which colour the letters turn. Green letters are correct, amber letters are correct but in the wrong place, and grey letters don’t appear in the word at all. It sounds easy but it’s a real test of vocabulary and linguistic knowledge. Having a great understanding of how words are spelled and put together will stand you in good stead for this game.