After the
huge success of the Brain Trainer franchise of educational, sum-solving titles,
the cerebral experts at Wistful Studios bring us a standalone expansion aimed
at the dementia inflicted player.
Bringing
with it many of the standard features seen in the popular Brain Trainer
franchise, such as mathematical problems and observational tests, Alzheimer’s
Edition also packs in a host of unique levels designed specifically to
entertain and train the minds of people suffering from the degenerative brain
disease.
Chief among
these new and exclusive levels is a maze based mini-game designed to test the
player’s ability to find their way home. Dropped at one end of a straight
street, gamers must use the stylus to draw a slow, shaky line from door to door
– asking irrelevant questions to the occupants of each house until their own
abode is once again located.
A score is
awarded depending on how few irrelevancies are uttered during repeated visits
to the same street, while the player’s house remains in exactly the same place each
time, with the front door wide open and the gas on inside.
Once this
level has been completed, several other dementia-based tests are unlocked. The
next involves searching a mock up of an ordinary suburban street as players
attempt to find their way home after wandering out in their slippers and
pyjamas. Stylus controls move the character from house to house, while stopping
passes by and asking extraneous questions and repeatedly telling strangers
about their grandchildren.
Further
Alzheimer’s Edition exclusives include wandering down the street looking for
your own house, finding your own house on a street you’ve lived on for 50 years
and locating your own home while shuffling around in the road directly outside.
A record of
your progress is gathered by playing Alzheimer’s Edition each day to build a
working graph of your mental improvements and/or deterioration, which could be
a very useful feature for young relatives attempting to assess when to book the
nursing home. Unfortunately the system didn’t seem to be particularly accurate
during review testing and repeatedly insisted we’d either not played for over a
week or were repeating the same level and therefore failing to keep any kind of
consistent record of achievements.
Brain
Trainer: Alzheimer’s Edition keeps to the successful formula of its
predecessors while offering a huge amount of variety in its exclusive content,
and we recommend buying yourself several copies. We certainly did.
Score: 7. Er… no. I mean 8. No, 7. I mean… er, 7.
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