Smart Games
Here you will find a selection of educational puzzle games from Smart Games, each of the games has been tested and reviewed by real people to bring you honest and informative reviews. Smart Games offer puzzles suitable for pre-schoolers all the way through to adults with their wide range of products. Read on to find out more!
Brain Train
This fantastic single player puzzle game is aimed at pre-schoolers as they become familiar with shapes, colours and problem solving. The puzzle comprises of a three-part locomotive and 9 coloured blocks; some of the blocks are held together with string and some have a different shape on the bottom to the shape on the top, so your child needs to work out which way up it needs to sit and in which order.
Included in the box is a booklet of 48 challenges to work through, starting off with easy puzzles and progressively getting harder as you work your way through the booklet. With a little adult, or older sibling guidance (my seven year old loves helping my three year do the challenges) your child will be able to look at the pictures to work out which order the blocks should fit in to the train, they will also need to make sure that the carriages are always connected by using the blocks with the string where necessary.
The blocks are nicely weighted and they have a lovely tactile feel to them, the train itself is really strong and sturdy and feels very good quality, all of the parts fit neatly back in to the box for storage when you have finished playing. Brain Train is suitable for ages 3+ which is just the right age as my three year old asks to get this out all the time and it is the perfect combination of playing and learning as this will seem to be just a toy to a young child, yet they are learning to recognise shapes and colours, how to problem solve and how to plan. Brain Train retails at £24.99 and is available from the Smart Games Shop.
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Atlantis Escape
Can you use your problem solving skills to escape from the city of Atlantis? Inside the box you get the puzzle itself which is made up of a lid, base and 6 puzzle pieces - these all fit together to keep the puzzle in one place when you aren't playing with it. An instruction booklet is included in which you will find 60 puzzles of 5 different difficulties from starter to wizard and a set of rules which will explain how you solve the puzzle.
The aim of the puzzle is to create a path from the door of the high tower to the exit on the game board. The piece which has the high tower on it is always placed on the board at the start of every game, but in varying places and orientations. Your path can not be diagonal, you can only enter staircases from the front and you can only go up or down a level by using a staircase.
Each puzzle shows which stairway pieces you are allowed to use to solve each puzzle, the more there are, the trickier the puzzle is to solve and there is only one solution for each game but the answers are shown at the end of the booklet if you get stuck! Atlantis escape is suitable for ages 8+ and even adults will find some of the puzzles will require a lot of working out! Games like this are great fun for getting your brain going and a huge bonus is that it comes inside its own storage box which makes it really quick to whip out and play with and unlike some puzzle games, you don't need to put all the pieces back in a certain way just to get the lid shut. Atlantis Escape helps with skills such as planning, concentration, problem solving and spatial insight and such brain games are said to improve your processing times and preserve your cognitive health. Atlantis Escape retails at £14.99 and you can find it here in the Smart Games Shop.
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