I love playing games. I believe that there are great benefits in playing games and in adopting a playful approach to life in general. Games help develop a range of vital skills in children and they love playing them. Games can also develop the same skills in adults but many grown-ups consider games to be childish and not worthy of their time. This is a pity and a missed opportunity.
Video games can boost reaction times and dexterity. Tetris, with its falling blocks, fosters spatial awareness. Chess is particularly good for improving concentration and analysis. Card games develop memory and analysis – bridge and canasta spring especially to mind. Poker involves probability calculation and the assessment of human pyschology. Sudoku is good for detailed numerical analysis. Scrabble will develop your vocabulary and ability to spot opportunities.
Drew Altschul, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, has been following a study that has tracked the development of children’s behaviour in Scotland since the 1940s. In particular the research has studied how the thinking skills of people change as they grew older.
In a BBC report he says the research suggests playing games can help preserve brain function: “People who played more games at age 70 had a less steep decline overall in their thinking skills.”
Which games should we play? It appears that all games using the brain help the brian. But let’s focus now on imagination and lateral thinking. Here are my favourite games for developing creativity:
- Charades. Your grandparents probably played this venerable parlour game. It requires no equpiment but plenty of imagination, improvisation and lateral thinking. And it is often hilarious fun.
- Pictionary. Similar to Charades but now with a graphical theme. Can you draw pictures which convey useful clues?
- Cryptic crosswords. A good cryptic crossword clue is devilishly cunning. You have to stretch your mind in all sorts of ingenious ways to figure out what it means.
- Lateral thinking puzzles. These are strange situations where you have to ask many questions, test your assumptions and come at the problem from differnt directions. Great for all the family on a long car journey.
- Code Names. A great game for four people which tests your ability to think of clues which give clever connections between multiple words.
- Dingbats. You have to think laterally to find the answers to these cunning puzzles.
- Escape rooms. Often involve ingenious clues and puzzles which you have to solve to move from one room to the next.
- Rory’s Story Cubes. A set of nine dice with different images create random stimuli. They fire your imagination with multiple starting points for story telling.
Which are your favourite creative thinking games?
Available on Amazon.co.uk
On Amazon.com
there is a game called 2048 avail on iOS and Playstore.