Welcome to the Castle of Dr. Brain! Dr. Brain is advertising for a lab assistant and you just may be the one for the job. Bring your copy of the job ad and your best problem-solving skills, and be ready to test your brain power. In Dr. Brain's castle, you'll need to apply a lot of different ways of thinking to solve the puzzles Dr. Brain has set up to test job applicants. Some of the puzzles require planning ahead, other require the ability to recognize patterns, still others depend on using logic, and all of them take persistence. If you don't solve a puzzle the first time through, keep trying.
Hint coins
You will begin the game with one hint coin, and earn more as you solve puzzles. If you get stuck trying to solve a puzzle, click on the coin slot in the puzzle window to buy help. In some puzzles a hint coin will buy a solution to part of the puzzle. If a coin buys a solution, spending more coins (if you have them) will buy more solutions. In other puzzles a hint coin will buy a hint about solving the puzzle. If a coin buys a hint, you can click on the coin slot to see the hint again without spending more hint coins. The more hint coins you have left over at the end of the game, the higher your score will be. Use your hint coins wisely or, even better, not at all to obtain a perfect score.
Difficulty level
You can set the difficulty level in Dr. Brain to Novice (default), Standard or Expert at any time. The harder you set the difficulty, the more points you will earn for solving the puzzles.
The puzzle interface
Each puzzle comes up onscreen in a puzzle box. Each puzzle box has three buttons:
Coin slot: Clicking on the coin slot button gets you help with the puzzle if you have a hint coin to buy that help. For more information on hint coins, see above.
Exit: Clicking on the Exit button closes the puzzle window. If you are unable to complete the puzzle or want to quit the game or do something else in Dr. Brain's Castle, clicking on Exit will allow you to leave the puzzle and come back to it later.
Question mark: Clicking on the question mark tells you about the puzzle - what you need to do, how to use the controls, and what kind of help your hint coins will buy.
The Dr. Brain icon bar
At the top of the game screen is an icon bar. Each icon represents an activity you can perform in the game. The icons in Dr. Brain are:
Look: looks like an eye. Choose Look when you want a description of something you see on the screen.
Do: looks like a hand. Choose Do when you want to take an action on something on the screen.
Item: looks like a picture frame. If you are not using an item from your inventory, the screen will be blank. If you are using an item, that item will be shown in the frame.
Inventory: looks like a book bag. Choose Inventory when you want to see what items you have picked up, or to use one of your items.
Controls: looks like a slider bar on a control panel. Choose Controls when you want to change the volume or difficulty level of the game, or when you want to save, restore, restart or quit the game. See picture on the right.
Go Back: looks like an arrow pointing back the way you came. Choose Go Back when you want to leave the puzzle or room you are in now and go back to the room you came from.
Help: looks like a question mark. When you choose Help, you will be able to get information by moving the question mark cursor on the other icons in the icon bar.
Dr. Brain: click Dr. Brain to get a description of the room you are in.
Each puzzle comes up onscreen in a puzzle box. Each puzzle box has three buttons:
