I think we are all in consensus that the most important tool available to a tester is their brain. That fact is why podcasts that mention how the brain works often get written up here. So how to we keep the brain fit? Nintendo wants you to think the trick is to play Brain Age and similar games but I get the gut feeling that testers need not only smart, working brains but ones that work in specialized ways.

The best testers I can think of, are not only curious (which I consider a personality trait) but are observant. Being observant is a brain information filtering process and can certainly be taught and/or honed. The build-up of intuition is part of the improvement of this process.

So how do we train / approve our brains to be more observant? Why not play games? Here are a couple I have thought of that might keep our brains alert.

  • Find Wii – This is a game for the Nintendo Wii here you need to quickly point out certain characters on the screen. Pairs, triples, sleeping ones, out of step, in the dark, etc. You can see it on youtube if you don’t have a Wii.
  • Sudoku – Sudoku is the crazy math game you can’t swing a cat without hitting (44 200 000 hits for it in Google). I used to find it hard, until it was pointed out to me that it is not a math puzzle, but a pattern recognition puzzle. The ‘diabolical’ ones stump me fairly regularly but the regular ones are about 7 – 11 minutes now not by math but just staring at it observing to the position of the numbers in relation to each other.
  • I’m so hungry… – This game was on the kids placemat in a restaurant the other week. The first person to go says “I’m so hungry I could eat an …” and says something that starts with A. The next person says something that starts with B, third gets C etc. You could do all sorts of extra parameters on this, like has to be from Europe, can’t be a fruit, needs to have wheels, etc. The trick is to be quick.
  • I went on a camping trip… – I saw this one at the speaker dinner after the 2007 GLSEC. Like the hungry game, its a pattern based on what someone would bring on a camping trip. It could be alphabetical, but the group I was with did “next person’s item needs to start with the last letter of the previous person’s item” and “item needs to start and end with the same letter.” To be even more devious the people leading the game didn’t tell us the rule, you had to figure it out for yourself. “I’d bring a Cabin.” “No you won’t, but you might bring a Tent” exchanges were common.

I’m sure there are other games useful as well. Chess maybe? Jenga possibly? What games do others consider beneficial to the career? (As compared to time sucks like Zelda or Metroid — which are my favorite time holes.)