After Hours

Photos: 10 brain buster apps to raise your mental game

By // September 2, 2015, 4:30 AM PST // ErinCarson

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  • 1. Monument Valley

    If MC Escher designed a mobile game, this would be it. Guide a little princess through a series of buildings with gravity and physics-defying stairways, doorways, and hallways by altering your perspective on the scene. It's gorgeous, beautifully scored, and racking up awards, like the 2014 iPad Game of the Year, and a 2015 BAFTA, to name a few. $3.99, available for iOS and Android.

  • 2. Blockwick 2

    It works a bit like traffic jam games. You have a limited space to rearrange colored blocks to connect ones of a specific color. It's relatively new and was recently featured as a download for Starbucks rewards members. Otherwise, it's $4.99 and available on iOS and Android.

  • 3. Lumosity

    Lumosity is brain training focusing on memory and attention, with a variety of different tasks and games. It also tracks how you do across time. It's available for free on iOS and Android.

  • 4. Squarge

    Similar to Blockwick, Squarge requires the player to rearrange like colored blocks into rows or columns, but it's more of a match-three game. The user is up against a timer, and the blocks only move right or left, up and down. There's also the option to shake the phone as a lifeline of sorts. It's $0.99 and available for Android.

  • 5. 2048

    There's also the addictive 2048. Popularity spiked a while ago, but it might still be new to many people. The premise is combining boxes with matching number values (2 and 2 turn into a box of 4) with the goal of creating that one last box of 2048. It's free and available for iOS and Android.

  • 6. Dots

    It's a simple but fun game--connect as many dots as you can within the timeframe. It also has three different modes including timed, endless, and number of moves to keep things interesting. It's free and available for iOS and Android.

  • 7. The Impossible Letter Game

    The Impossible Letter Game requires an eagle eye and a lot of focus. It gives the user a grid of varying sizes made of letters or numbers, like all Zs, or all 5s, but somewhere in there, there's a confederate. Maybe an F in a grid of hundreds of Es. Sometimes they're easy to spot, other times… not so much. It's free and available on iOS and Android.

  • 8. Flow Free

    Connect the colored dots to create pipes, and complete the puzzle by covering the board without breaking any of those pipes. (Pipes break with they cross other colors.) The game gets progressively harder, and has different modes. It's free and available for iOS and Android.

  • 10. Can You Escape

    Break out of rooms by solving puzzles and finding objects that will come in handy in the next room you get trapped in. It's free and available for iOS and Android.

  • 10. Sudoku

    It's a classic. But instead of waiting for the Times, or buying a softback compilation of Sudoku puzzles, just snag an app. It's free and available for iOS and Android.

1. Monument Valley

If MC Escher designed a mobile game, this would be it. Guide a little princess through a series of buildings with gravity and physics-defying stairways, doorways, and hallways by altering your perspective on the scene. It's gorgeous, beautifully scored, and racking up awards, like the 2014 iPad Game of the Year, and a 2015 BAFTA, to name a few. $3.99, available for iOS and Android.

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After Hours Innovation Hardware Tech & Work

About Erin Carson

Erin Carson is a Staff Reporter for CNET and a former Multimedia Editor for TechRepublic.