Brain Age is designed to be played a little each day, similar to the
Nintendogs titles and
Animal Crossing: Wild World. The game is played with the DS rotated 90 degrees like a book, with the touch screen on the right for right-handed people and the left for left-handed people. The game is entirely touch and voice-controlled – the player either writes the answer to the puzzle on the touch screen or speaks it into the microphone. Before the player can begin a Brain Age session, they must input information. First, players must confirm the date and select which hand they write with. The player then inputs their name and date of birth. At the end of all Brain Age Check puzzles, Training puzzles, Quick Play puzzles, and Sudoku puzzles, the player is shown how quickly they completed it, the player's speed (according to metaphors such as "bicycle speed" and "jet speed", the highest being "rocket speed"), and a tip for either improving the player's brain or a game-related tip. If the player's time or score in Brain Age Check or Training is high enough, it will appear on one or both of the Top Three. The Top Three shown is the player's own top three attempts at a puzzle, while they can also compare the top three with those of other saved players. The player's score is only counted on their first attempt at a puzzle each day. The player is also awarded stamps for each day they complete the puzzles. When enough is accumulated, the game unlocks certain features such as more puzzles in Training mode, Hard versions of these puzzles, and the ability to customize the player's own stamps. While the player is navigating the menus outside of the puzzles, Professor Kawashima appears to prompt and encourage the user.
Brain Age allows up to four players to save profiles on one DS game card, and these players can interact with each other in several different ways. There are five modes of play – Brain Age Check, Training, Quick Play, Download, and Sudoku. When starting a session, Kawashima may ask the player to participate in a Picture-Drawing Quiz, which requires the player to draw a person, place, or thing by memory using the touch screen. After the player has done all three, the game will compare their drawing to an example created by the game developers, along with advice of what to emphasize on below its image. If more than one player profile is saved on the game card, images for the day can be compared to those of other players. Kawashima may also ask the player to participate in a Memory Quiz, which requires the player to recall a recent event, such as what the player ate or the most interesting thing seen on television the day before. Several days later, it will ask for the answer originally provided, and will then compare the answer given several days ago and the answer given on the current day to test the player's recollection skills. The player is not scored on their ability to remember.
Brain Age Check The game includes four modes: Brain Age Check, Training, Quick Play, and Sudoku. The Brain Age Check gives the player three puzzle minigames to complete. The first is usually a Stroop test, although the player can choose to skip the Stroop test if they are not in a quiet environment or is otherwise unable to speak into the microphone. At the end of the Brain Age Check, the game reports on the player's "brain age", a theoretical assessment of the age of the player's brain. The higher the brain age, the worse the player performed. The best possible score is 20 and the worst 80, according with Kawashima's theory that the brain stops developing at 20. The player may replay the Brain Age Check, but the brain age is registered per day only. Once the player confirms whether or not they can speak into the microphone, Professor Kawashima will describe the first puzzle. If the player answered that they can speak, the game begins with a
Stroop test; if the player cannot use the microphone, the game picks a random puzzle from the following: Calculations X 20, Word Memory, Connect Maze, and Number Cruncher. During the
Stroop Test, the game will display one of four words and colors: blue, black, yellow, and red. One of these words mentioned will appear on screen, in a random color which may not match the color denoted by the word. The player is instructed to say the color of the word, rather than the word itself (e.g., if the word
Yellow appears in blue letters, the correct answer is "blue" according to the
Stroop effect for details). In
Speed Counting, which requires speaking but does not use the microphone, the player counts up from one to 120 as fast as they can without slurring the names of numbers.
Word Memory gives the player a list of 30 four-lettered words. The player is given two minutes to study the list and memorize as many words as possible. After the time is up, the player must write down as many words as they can in three minutes. To spell words that were not on the list won't make the player lose marks but the system won't recognize them. On the contrary, spelling an on-list word will count as memorized and even the test will notify the players if they already wrote this word in case they rewrite it.
Connect Maze gives players a randomly created group of circles, with letters and numbers in them. The player must follow the pattern A-1-B-2 until reaching M-13 as quickly as possible.
Calculations × 20 presents the player with 20 simple calculation equations that includes
addition,
subtraction, and
multiplication. On the top screen are the problems which scroll up as answered whether right or wrong, while the touch screen is used to write out the answer. This test is also available in the training section.
Number Cruncher is a mental agility game that displays several numbers, which vary in their appearance and on-screen behavior and above it is a question, such as "how many numbers are blue?" or "how many numbers are moving?", which the player must answer as quickly as possible.
Training The Training mode allows the player to play a variety of training programs, with all but one of them being exclusive to the Training mode. Once the player completes at least one program, Kawashima awards them with a stamp, which he places on the current date. If the player completes at least three programs, the stamp will expand in size. After accumulating a certain number of stamps, Kawashima will award the player with a new program, difficulty mode, or additional feature under the Options menu such as the ability for the player to customize their own stamp. Each program can be played as many times as the player likes, although only the first play-through of the day will count in the graph for that puzzle.
Minigames There are nine training programs in Training mode. The first three are available by default, while the rest are unlocked by collecting enough stamps. •
Calculations × 20, which is the same as the one found in the Brain Age Check. Mental agility exercise with a total of simple calculation 20 questions that includes addition, subtraction, and multiplication. •
Calculations × 100, which is the same as Calculations × 20, although with 100 questions instead of 20. There is a hard mode that includes simple division. •
Reading Aloud, which gives the player an excerpt from a classic story such as
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or
Little Women, and tasks the player with reading the story aloud or mute to see how quickly they can do it. The player progresses through the excerpt by pushing Next, until they reach the end of the excerpt. If the player pushes Next too quickly, this will be found as cheating, and the program will count the activity as undone. •
Low to High: The game instructs to remember several numbers in boxes; those boxes appear with no numbers but at the count of 3, numbers appear only one second. Once gone, the players have to remember the numbers from the lowest to the highest and click the correct box, while failing to order the numbers will count as mistake. Depending on if the player gets right or wrong the number of boxes increase or decrease, meaning that the game has an adaptive difficulty between at least 4 boxes to a maximum of 16. •
Syllable Count shows several phrases, one after the other, on the top screen, and the player must write the number of
syllables in each phrase on the touch screen. •
Head Count features a random number of people on the top screen (e.g. 4). After a few seconds to allow the player to count the number of people, a house falls over them. The player must watch the screen carefully, as the people inside will leave the house and more people will enter the house. This will eventually cease, and the game asks the player to write down how many people are currently in the house. The puzzle gets more difficult as the player progresses in it. There is also a hard mode in which people also come in and out of the chimney. •
Triangle Math: A kind of calculations (most of the time addition or subtraction, but sometimes may include sign rules such as -(-3)= 3) in tier format just like
Pascal's triangle that the player must solve. This exercise also features a hard mode with an additional tier. •
Time Lapse displays two analogue clocks (e.g. one at 2:45 and one at 7:30), and requires the player to calculate the difference in time between those clocks, in that case answer would be 4h 45min. •
Voice Calculation, which is similar to the Calculations puzzles. However, this puzzle requires the player to speak the correct answer loud just like the Stroop Test.
Quick Play Quick Play can be played by anyone, whether they have a saved file or not. Quick Play allows the player to play three modes – Quick Brain Age Check, Quick Training, and Quick Sudoku, all only providing the player with one of the easy puzzles in each of these modes to try. Quick Brain Age Check only allows the player to play the stroop test. In Quick Training, the game only allows the player to play Calculations × 20. In Quick Sudoku, which is only available for North America, Europe and South Korea, the player may only play the easiest Sudoku puzzle available. At the end of each session, the player's brain age or time will be assessed, and Kawashima will give a preview of the full game.
Download A player with a copy of
Brain Age can send certain game data to other Nintendo DS consoles using the DS Download Play feature. They may either download Quick Play mode to this player's Nintendo DS, or Calculations × 30, a variation of the other Calculation puzzles which can be played by up to sixteen people. This mode is not supported in the Wii U Virtual Console version.
Sudoku Included in the
North America,
Europe,
Australia and
Korea versions of this game is a
Sudoku mode, which features more than 100 puzzles across three different modes – Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Sudoku involves a 9×9 grid with numbers in every square. Some of these numbers are visible, while others are not. The objective is to fill in the hidden numbers using the visible numbers as hints. Each row, column, and 3×3 grid has nine squares in it, and each must contain each number in the range from 1 to 9. ==Scientific effectiveness==