Overview
Take revenge on your annoying high-IQ-scoring peers after you flex your brain power with this challenging quiz game. It’s fun and simple, although it’s not easy to learn and very overpriced.
Gameplay
IQ boost challenges users to remember audio and visual trends simultaneously.
If you’re like the many who have bought the game and watched the tutorial, you have no idea what that means. Basically, the app will play audio samples of letters. If you hear a letter twice in a row, that’s a repetition and you should press the “Audio” button.
But that’s too simple. At the same time you have to pay attention to a visual grid. If you see the same square flash successively, press the “Visual” button.
But that was only the 1-back mode, which means that the game is asking you to remember the last audio and visual actions it took. IQ boost goes all the way up to 6-back, which challenges users to remember if the current action is a repetition of another that happened six actions ago. Sound difficult? That’s because it is.
As far as the interface goes, there is nothing else about the game to make it more complicated.
It has a pretty versatile settings page and a statistics tracker as well.
Review
IQ boost is tricky and exciting, but it is way too expensive for what it is.
Maybe the developer thought there would be enough demand for the product to keep it at $5.99, but although it is a very challenging game, it’s just too one-dimensional when compared to other games of the same price, regardless if it’s in the brain challenger genre.
The entire gaming experience occurs on one simple screen. Can I at least get an animated monkey or some stars or sparkly effects when I get something right? Anything? Nope, just a big red X or a green check mark. Not creative at all.
Sure, it's not the most playful of game types, but if the developer is going to charge more than
Chimps Ahoy! it should at least add some flavor to the experience.
If the game was free, or even $1.99, it wouldn’t matter, but once you pass the $3 mark, there has to be some compelling visual elements to enhance the game and earn that extra value.
On top of that, the tutorial is not very intuitive. If I hadn’t heard of the whole n-back gaming concept, I would have been lost (so be thankful that AppleiPhoneApps.com is here for you).
Summary
This is a great mental activity that is a lot of fun, but the application is way too simple and one-dimensional to be worth $5.99. If the price was lowered to even $1.99, IQ boost would have much better value.
