Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!

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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
Genre(s)	Educational 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? is an educational title for the Nintendo DS. Marketed for adults, the game is based on a popular book written by Professor Ryūta Kawashima. It is known in Japan as Professor Ryūta Kawashima of Tōhoku University's Center for Collaborative Research on Future Technology Presents: Train Your Brain - DS Training for Adults (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, Tohoku Daigaku Mirai Kagaku Gijutsu Kyoudou Kenkyū Sentā Kawashima Ryūta-kyouju Kanshuu: Nou wo Kitaeru Otona no DS Torēningu^?)

Contents 1 History 2 Gameplay 3 Release 3.1 Retailer reaction 3.2 Western release 3.3 Sales information 3.4 Scientific effectiveness 4 Reviews and reception 5 Trivia 6 Criticism 7 See also 8 References 8.1 Further reading 9 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. To assist the user in lowering his/her "brain age", he/she can take training exercises which include:

• Calculations X 20: Twenty simple mathematic calculations (eg. 3x7) 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 amount of syllables read per second, calculated by the speed each page is read.
• Time Lapse: Two 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)
• 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. 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.

[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] Western release

In the 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 100 Sudoku games 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 Europe. 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.

[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.^[6]

During its first three weeks on sale in North America, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day sold 120,000 copies,^[7] becoming the fifteenth title in the Tops U.S. Console Charts during the month of May in terms of income.^[8] The title has stayed in the top ten of both Amazon and BestBuy list since its release.^[9][10] As of August 2006, Nintendo lists Brain Age as the 2nd most-sold game for the DS. ^[11]

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,^[12] and selling more than 500,000 units in just over two months.^[13]

[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.^[14]

[edit] Reviews and reception

The game was warmly received in the western market, with an average between 76 (Generally favorable reviews)^[15] in Metacritic and 77^[16] in Game Rankings, in both cases out of 100. Notable reviews included IGN's (Impressive)^[17], GameSpy^[18] and GameSpot (Good)^[19], 1UP.com (Dynamite)^[20] and Eurogamer (really enjoyable game).^[21]

The game has been featured in numerous media apparitions including newspapers and television in different countries, including USA (Time magazine^[22][23] and Discovery Channel^[24]) and Australia (featured in Seven News^[25]).

Edge magazine awarded the game with the EIEF06 Edge Award for innovation.^[26]

[edit] Trivia

• Nintendo sent a DS Lite with a copy of the game to President Bush for his 60th birthday.^[27]
• It is one of the three favorite current games of Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat franchise.^[28]
• The sound heard when the doctor is "talking" is very similar to the "bebebese" voice option in Animal Crossing and Animal Crossing: Wild World.^{[citation needed]}
• When you speak the phrase 'glasses, glasses' on the title screen, the doctor's glasses will fly to his forehead and he'll close his eyes while shaking his head and gaping.

[edit] Criticism

Brain Age is sometimes criticised for its speech recognition, especially with the word "blue".^[29]

[edit] See also

• Brain Trainer
• Big Brain Academy
• Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training 2
• English Training
• Touch! Generations

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Interview with the localization team at 1Up.com and Game Informer
• Mail interview with professor Ryūta Kawashima

[edit] External links

• Official Brain Age Website
• Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! at YouTube