Don't own a DS? Fed up of watching your mates grow ever smarter on Brain Training, while your IQ stagnates? It's okay, help is at hand. The amusingly titled Fitbrains, is a casual gaming site, which works exactly like a brain training title - you can play a selection of games designed to test your grey matter in five key areas: memory, concentration, language, logic and spatial skills. If you sign up (it's free) the site provides regular workouts and also tracks your progress and improvements. From the press release:
Fit Brains is designed by award-winning Neuroscientist Dr. Paul Nussbaum from University of Pittsburgh and supported by a board of scientific advisors. The team behind Fit Brains has identified the tools necessary to engage and motivate users of all ages, providing individual workouts that can be played alone or against friends and family with leader boards for players in need of a competitive edge. Fit Brains is also home to Dr. Nussbaum's blog where he discusses the most up-to-date trends, research and news about brain health and awareness.
At first I wasn't sure how developer Vivity Labs was going to make money out of the site but it, according to Venture Beat, the Premium service, which includes all the performance tracking stats will soon be monitised.
The games are a decent, polished selection of familiar brain training and casual game site stalwarts, and the site is well-designed and less cluttered and frenzied than other big games portals. The Fit Brains motto, "guilt-free fun" is a bit off-putting though - first, it sounds like an advert for a diet chocolate bar and secondly, who exactly has ascribed guilt to gaming? This kind of language is bad enough when employed in the marketing of food to women, but it's depressing to see it appropriated into digital culture.
Still, a well-conceived, cleverly-targeted little site.
