Brain Training

Of late brain training and brain development through puzzle games have become topics that are being discussed in every forum.

It’s a proven fact that there is a tremendous increase in activity of the brain cells while playing puzzle games, be it on computer, in paper or video. The brain seems t become more active and memory power increases, not only in children but in adults too.

There are word games like crossword and hangman which enhance your vocabulary and make you think faster in that language. Logic puzzles on the other hand has a higher impact on your brain cells, playing magic with intelligence. Games like monograms that make you think logically are quite famous. The other more interesting ones are the number logic puzzles like the Sudoku and the Mathdoku.

Mathdoku- though might look new is quite analogous to sudoku, in using number grids. But here the level of arithmetic involved is higher than that of sudoku. Known by Nextoy LLCs trademark names like KenKen, KEN-KEN and KenDoku, Mathdoku is now slowly gaining popularity.

The general method of playing Mathdoku
Basically these puzzles contain a set of outlined cells, called cages. On the top left hand corner of each cage you are provide with an answer and instruction of what operation is to be used. All you have to do is to use the operation and come up with the given answer combining numbers in the cage in any sequence.
Examples
1. Consider a cage of 3 cells. The answer given is “12+”.you have to now come up with numbers that when added in any order give 12.
2. Cage of 2 cells. The answer given is “3-“.here the answer that is got by subtracting the number of one cell from the other has to be 3.

Within a cage you can repeat a number, but the number has to occur only once in a row and a column.

The player
The player can be of any age group. Since there are different levels of grid, anyone would find it interesting to play. You can find grids from 3x3 size to 9x9 size and at varying difficulty levels too, both in arithmetic and logical thinking. This is a good entertainer for children and a learning process for adults.

Availability
Mathdoku, like Sudoku is found everywhere. The internet is one of the easily accessible sources of Mathdoku puzzles loaded in various play online sites. Even printable forms are available. Some Mathdoku puzzles are made available in pcs too.
Newspapers like The New York Times and UK edition of The Times have a daily slot of mathdoku puzzle under the Nextoy LLC license-the KenKen. Recently magazines and puzzle books too have started showing interest to use Mathdoku in their prints.
There are other logic puzzle games too that may be of your interest like Latin Squares, Kakuro, Link Letter, Cancan, Minuplu Hitori etc.