Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!

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Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!

Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release date(s)	May 19, 2005 April 17, 2006 April 19, 2006 June 9, 2006 June 16, 2006 January 18, 2007
Genre(s)	Edutainment game
Mode(s)	Single / Multi player
Rating(s)	CERO: All ages ESRB: E PEGI: 3+
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Media	Cartridge
Input	Microphone, Touch screen

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! or Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? (東北大学未来科学技術共同研究センター川島隆太教授監修脳を鍛える大人のDSトレーニング, Tōhokudaigaku Mirai Kagaku Gijutsu Kyōdō Kenkyū Sentā Kawashima Ryūta Kyōju Kanshū Nō o Kitaeru Otona no Dīesu Torēningu^?) is an educational and entertaining title for the Nintendo DS. Marketed for adults, the game is based on a popular book written by Professor Ryūta Kawashima.

1 History
2 Gameplay
3 Release
4 Reviews and reception
5 Other
6 See also
7 References
- 7.1 Further reading
8 External links

[edit] History

Nintendo was looking for something new to develop that would appeal to both gamers and non-gamers. In one of the meetings, the Chief Financial Officer of Nintendo Japan suggested reviewing a published book titled Train Your Brain, which was enjoying an interesting amount of success. Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, arranged for a meeting to see Professor Ryūta Kawashima, the author of Train Your Brain.^[1]

As both Mr. Iwata and Professor Kawashima were too busy to meet in other situations, they agreed to meet for an hour during the Nintendo DS launch. The original meeting became a brainstorming session that lasted three hours, in which Professor Kawashima explained the basics of his studies.

Mr. Iwata ordered a team of nine developers to work on the game and to have it ready in 90 days for demonstration.^[2]

[edit] Gameplay

The game, like Nintendogs and Animal Crossing: Wild World, is designed to be played a little each day. Each session includes such brain-training activities as high-speed reading, drawing from memory, fast math problems, and Stroop tests.

The DS is held on its side, with the touch screen on the right for right-handed people and the left for left-handed people. The controls used are a voice-recognition feature for the DS's internal microphone, and a handwriting-recognition feature for its touch screen.

During each session the player may take the Brain Age test, in which there are 3 randomly picked tests. At the end of the tests, Kawashima gives the player a score, called a "brain age", a number at least 20 (the ideal score), that tells the performance of the mind (a brain age of 37 would be approximately equivalent to a 37-year-old mind). Ideally, the brain age should be lower than the real age, or approach 20. The game tracks the progress of up to four users.

The tests that can be chosen (at random) during the Brain Age calculation are selected from the following, though if the player indicates he or she is in a location that he or she cannot speak, those tests requiring verbal input (Stroop Test and Speed Counting) are not selected.

New ways to play: When playing Brain Age the player holds the DS like a book

Word Memory: A random list of 30 4-letter words is given to the player to study for 2 minutes. After this time, the player must then enter as many words as he or she can remember within the next 3 minutes.
Stroop Test: One of the words "Blue", "Black", "Yellow", and "Red" appear randomly on the screen, repeatedly over the test period, but displayed in a color different than the word indicated (eg, "Red" may appear as blue text). The player must speak the color of the word to be correct.
Connect Maze: A random pattern of circles labeled with the letters "A" through "M" and numbers 1 through 13 are shown to the player. The player must draw as fast as they can a line that connects the circles in the order "A", "1", "B", "2", and so forth, but without crossing any other circle.
Number Cruncher: A screen randomly shows a set of single digit numbers in a variation in colors, rotation, pulsing, and movement. The player is given a question about the numbers (eg. "How many 8's are there?", or "How many numbers are moving?") and then must write the answer as fast as possible.
Speed Counting: The player must speak aloud each number from 1 to 120 consecutively and without shortcut (eg, 117 should be said as "one hundred seventeen" as opposed to "one one seven"), then touch the screen to indicate when he or she is completed.
Calculations x 20: Twenty simple mathematic calculations (eg. 3x7) are presented to the player.

By holding down Select and then tapping "Brain Age Check", the player can discover a way to select the tests he/she wishes to be tested on.

To assist the user in lowering his/her "brain age", he/she can take training exercises which include:

Calculations X 20: Same as the Brain Age calculation test. The user is timed and given a penalty of 5 seconds for each wrong answer.
Calculations X 100: One hundred simple mathematic calculations. The user is timed and given a penalty of 5 seconds for each wrong answer.
Syllable Count: Several phrases are given out and the user has to give how many syllables there are in the sentence (eg. for It ain't over until the fat lady sings, the user would write: 11).
Reading Aloud: The user is given excerpt of a classic story (eg. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Hound of the Baskervilles) which the user has to read aloud, or if they are in an area where they would be embarrassed to do so, they can read to themselves. The result is the number of syllables read per second, calculated by the speed each page is read.
Time Lapse: Two analog clocks are shown (eg. one at 2:45 and one at 7:30). The user has to calculate the time difference between these two clocks.
Triangle Math: (shown, above right) The user has to make a series of simple math calculations in a reverse-pyramid scheme to arrange at a single answer. In the example graphic, the player would need to first calculate 6+8 (14), then 8+7 (15), and then 14+15 to get the final answer of 29.
Head Count: The user has to count a certain number of people (eg. 4) and then a house falls down in front of them. People then start to enter or leave the house. In the end, the user has to write how many people are in the house. Every "level" goes a little bit faster than its predecessor. In the hard mode, people will also enter and exit through the chimney, whilst in the normal mode people only enter and exit through the left and right.
Low to High: Several numbers are shown for 1 second on a pattern of boxes. The user memorizes them and then taps their former locations in ascending order on the touch screen.
Voice Calculation: Fifty simple math problems; however, the solution is not written, but is spoken aloud.

After the session, the player can redo the exercises to try to improve his/her score, but only the first score per test per day will be recorded. In addition, in the North American, European and Australian versions of the game, there are over 100 Sudoku puzzles that can be solved. The player can also play 16-player multiplayer over DS Download Play in a math calculation battle.

Randomly, after starting a session, the game may ask the player to draw an object to compare it to an example from the game, focusing on a key detail of the object, or the game may ask the player to recall a recent event, and then several days later, will ask the player to try to recall that event. These are unscored activities but are to help improve the player's "Brain Age" as well.

[edit] Release

[edit] Retailer reaction

As expected, retailers expressed concern about the new title. The most important retailers in Japan were given the game for 15 minutes to test it out. In the end, Nintendo secured nearly 70,000 orders for the first shipment, an amount above most expectations. In comparison, the sequel had over 850,000 orders placed before launching.^[1]

[edit] Overseas release

In the North American market, the game is known as Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day and was released on April 17, 2006, and included 108 Sudoku puzzles of different levels of difficulty.

Nintendo gave out copies of the North American version of Brain Age at the 2006 Game Developers Conference. They also shipped free retail versions to special members of the Nintendo NSider Forums. Both groups received their copies before the official release date. It has also been given away to certain retailers with the purchase of a Nintendo DS Lite.^[3]

The game was released as "Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?" in the UK and Ireland. Like the American version, this version also features Sudoku. All 3 parts are saved on one cartridge.^[4]

In the United Kingdom, its television commercial features the voice of Chris Tarrant.^[5] A recent advert also features Chris Tarrant playing the Reading Aloud game himself on a park bench as the man next to him looks intrigued.

The game is one of the launch titles for the DS Lite in South Korea, along with English Training. It was released on January 18, 2007.^[6]

[edit] Sales information

The game debuted selling around 43,000 copies in May 2005, considered a good number for an educational title. Although most titles only stay in the Japanese weekly top ten list of games for a couple of weeks, DS Training for Adults managed to stay, as of January 2006, between the most sold games for 34 weeks (except three weeks).

As of June 11, 2006, Brain Training has sold 2,322,970 copies in Japan alone.^[7]

During its first three weeks on sale in North America, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day sold 120,000 copies,^[8] becoming the fifteenth title in the Tops U.S. Console Charts during the month of May in terms of income.^[9] The title has stayed in the top ten of both Amazon and Best Buy list since its release.^[10]^[11] As of March 2007, Nintendo lists Brain Age as the 4th most-sold game for the DS. ^[12]

In Europe, Brain Training received critical acclaim, becoming number 1 in the Nintendo DS sales chart, and number 4 in the all-platforms chart on debut,^[13] and selling more than 500,000 units in just over two months.^[14]

[edit] Scientific effectiveness

Although the game was developed in conjunction with Professor Ryūta Kawashima, the effectiveness of the game in maintaining mental fitness amongst its users remains unclear. Nintendo has refused to support any scientific claims to the benefits of the game, stressing that they are in the entertainment business.^[15]

[edit] Reviews and reception

The game was warmly received in the western market, with an average between 76 (Generally favorable reviews)^[16] in Metacritic and 77^[17] in Game Rankings, in both cases out of 100. Notable reviews included IGN's (Impressive)^[18], GameSpy^[19] and GameSpot (Good)^[20], 1UP.com (Dynamite)^[21] and Eurogamer (really enjoyable game).^[22]

The game has been featured in numerous media apparitions including newspapers and television in different countries, including USA (Time magazine^[23]^[24] and Discovery Channel^[25]) and Australia (featured in Seven News^[26]).

Edge magazine awarded the game with the EIEF06 Edge Award for innovation.^[27]

In 2007, Brain Age received the Interactive Achievement Awards for handheld game of the year.^[28]

Ryūta Kawashima as he appears in the game

[edit] Other

On the start screen, if the player says any of the following:

"Dr. Kawashima"
"glasses, glasses"
"Japan"
any Japanese word

then Dr. Kawashima will perform one of the following actions:

Laugh
Frown
His glasses will flip up for a short time

Also, depending on the time of day and year, he will make a comment when the player first starts brain training e.g. if it is a January morning he will say "Boy that sun is bright", followed by "Brr it's cold. I could use some cocoa".