For those who want to give their brain a workout, the iPhone app DexIQ (99 cents) is a must-own edutainment iPhone app.
Ever since getting my hands on the Nintendo DS’s “Brain Age” titles, I’ve been convinced it’s probably a good idea to play more games that at least resemble some of the work completed in school years long since passed. I’m not sure whether playing games that supposedly exercise your brain is actually an effective tool to remain cognitively sharp, but if it is, DexIQ is a smart download.
DexIQ’s hook is that it tests not only your IQ, but your dexterity, by making you play two different games at one time, with the screen split down the middle. It’s the iPhone equivalent to patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
For instance, One early challenge will tell you to drag your finger across the screen to move a car out of traffic while simultaneously smashing bugs by by tapping on the other side of the screen with your other finger. While it seems daunting at first, the feeling of getting into a rhythm at both games simultaneously is quite a treat.
As you progress through the games’ eight challenges, the games get tacked on to one another. While you begin by completing two sets of games, you’ll soon have three, four, and so on, to get through before you’re allowed to advance. The way that each challenge builds upon the last is a pretty clever way to reinforce what the game is teaching you. Plus, once you get into the later stages, it becomes its own challenge just to stay focused for four or five of the games in a row.
I can’t stress enough, if you’re interested at all in puzzles and games that activate the brain, you should be putting DexIQ onto your iPhone as we speak. It’s a little short on the available amount of challenges, but for under $1, you absolutely cannot go wrong.
