gbrainy Frequently Asked Questions
Is gbrainy a Linux clone of Brain Age?
Brain Age made brain trainer games popular, because of this, people keeps comparing gbrainy with Brain Age but I have only used Brain Age very recently. gbrainy influences are Terry Stickels' works and Dr. Brain.
Can gbrainy help to improve my cognitive performance?
There have been recent discussions in the scientific community regarding whether brain training software improves cognitive performance. Most of the studies show that there is little or no improvement, but that doesn't mean you can't have a good time playing games like gbrainy.
How gbrainy selects the default language?
Linux / Unix
gbrainy uses the default language of your system. Under Linux and Unix systems it honors the LANGUAGE environment variable. You can change this using the preferences using the UI. If you wish to use the command line, first type locale -a in the console to find out, which locale settings are supported on your system and how they were written.
For example, to switch to the German language you can do: export LANGUAGE="de_DE.utf-8"
Windows
gbrainy honors the default language set up in the regional settings (Control Panel -> Regional Settings).
I found gbrainy to be too difficult
gbrainy has been tested with different groups of people. A few times groups of students from secondary school (aged 15/16 years old) have participated in different game sessions to verify the clarity of the questions, the different difficulty levels, the way that they were providing answers, etc. See for example.
gbrainy is not a difficult game. There is people that has more ability than other to solve different kinds of puzzles. Additionally, the difficulty level can be customized. Take your time and enjoy the puzzles, thinking is always a healthy exercise.
How can I skip certain games or play the ones that I like most?
Using the menu option Game -> New Game -> Custom Game Selection. You can select exactly which games do you want to play with.
Can you recommend books with games similar to gbrainy?
In any major bookshop you have a puzzle and games sections with books devoted to this kind of games. I recommend:
- Stickels, Terry. The Big Book of Stickelers: 320 Fun and Challenging Brainteasers to Sharpen Your Mind (Paperback). Fair Winds Press
- Stickels, Terry. The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles (Mensa). Sterling
Libgnomesharpglue-2 error trying to run gbrainy on a non-gnome environment
For the people that want to run gbrainy in other desktops than gnome (xfce, or KDE) and get an error with and get an error with libgnomesharpglue-2. You may need to have installed the libgnomeprintui, gnome-applets and gnome-icon-theme packages.