Big Brain Academy

Big Brain Academy (やわらかあたま塾, Yawaraka Atamajuku?) is a puzzle video game published and developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan on June 30, 2005, and was later released in North America on June 5, 2006, in Australia on July 5, 2006, and in Europe on July 7, 2006. It has been compared to Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!. It is marketed under the Nintendo's Touch! Generations brand.

A sequel, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, was released for the Wii in April 2007.

Gameplay
In Big Brain Academy, tests are done in order to measure a brain's mass. The heavier the brain, the smarter the brain is or the better the reaction time is. There is no one game mechanism to Big Brain Academy, as it is an assortment of puzzles with no one puzzle having greater priority than the other. There are three modes of play - Test mode, Practice mode, and Versus mode.

Test
Test mode consists of a formal test consisting of five puzzles, with one puzzle taken at random from each of the five categories to determine the player's brain mass.

After the test, the player is given a letter grade. Dr. Lobe (the "headmaster" of Big Brain Academy) also assess what areas the player needs to improve in and what ranking they would be; professions include museum curator, librarian, astronaut, investor, fashion stylist, diplomat, cave man, Isaac Newton, poet, banker, doctor, musician, etc.

There are five different categories of tests with three activities per category. The categories are (followed by their activities):

Think (Logic-themed questions) Analyze (Reason-based questions) Compute (Math-themed questions) Identify (Visual-themed questions) Memorize (Memory-based questions)

Practice mode
Practice mode allows the player to select which specific exercise he or she wants to do in order to train their brain. The tests consist of tests available in the Test mode. Each mode has three difficulty modes, and the player can earn either a bronze, silver, gold medal, or a Platinum medal for achieving a certain brain mass in each difficulty mode.

Versus mode
In Versus mode, players can compete to determine who has the heaviest brain. Anywhere from 2 to 8 players can join a hosting player whether or not they themselves have a copy of the game.