Mind Habits

It has long been a fascination of the many great minds out there to try and explore and indeed explain the human psyche. To the credit of these individuals people have advanced in several ways since some of the mysteries have been solved... and then some bright spark decides to bundle these concepts into a fun and quirky mobile phone game come application.

Needless to say you don’t have to be the next Albert Einstein to work out how to use or indeed benefit from the appropriately titled, Mind Habits. In actuality, this software’s pretty much as simple as it gets. You are tested in four enlightening and entertaining ways and your responses are monitored and logged for reference. Unlike many of the other similar programmes available for your mobile phone, you aren’t necessarily testing your intelligence, moreover you are shown ways to change your mental state and encouraged to be more positive.

Although it is a bit of a bizarre concept to effectively change the user’s outlook on life through playing a few ‘mind games’, but actually when you think about it, games and software has been used for this of thing for quite some time – and from my experience, it actually works!

Take for example one of the simplest programmes this package has to offer, the matrix, this shows a series of images where you have to spot the smiling face and press the associated key on your keypad from 1 to 9. To begin with, this is a simple task which should present you with little difficulty, despite it being against the clock. However, the game gets quite addictive and without thinking about it, you’re reading faces in the search for the happy one and pressing the keypad as quick as a flash in order to unlock the next stage.

After I had played this for about fifteen minutes, it’s safe to say that I’d forgotten about all of life’s troubles and indeed felt happy and quite satisfied I’d managed to become very perceptive of the images.

Another game which you get to play and enjoy is the word search. In this game you’re presented with a grid of jumbled letters which you must try and scan through to find the hidden words. The novelty of this is that all the words you are in search of are positive. For example ‘embraced’, ‘valued’, ‘loved’, ‘warmth’ and ‘accepted’ are often words which keep cropping up.

As everyone knows, practice makes perfect and you have the choice of taking a daily test or practicing your skills on the various games and you’re rewarded through your improvements by unlocking new challenges (which can be played in either the practice or daily challenge).

So overall, this game is a really novel and enjoyable experience. Unlike the usual challenge style games you get to reinforce positive messages and improve not just your perceptions and skills and abilities in playing, but socially and mentally too. I honestly didn’t think I would find taking tests as fun or as enlightening as this, but it’s true and I recommend this game very highly.

Rating 93%

Positives

An enjoyable and multi-layered gaming experience

You can practice and unlock more games or play the daily challenge

You can learn a lot about yourself and become more positive

Graphics are clear and appealing

Negatives

The cute graphics may take the edge off the perception of this product

The controls are a little fiddly to use particularly when playing against the clock

The games can be a little easy and repetitive