June 25th, 2013 
Developer: Sierra On-Line
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Platform: PC (DOS)
When I was younger I was a big proponent of computer-based video games. Of course, at the time, a great deal of my games were so-called edutainment. Some were fun, some were not so fun, and some barely qualified as educational at all. One game that always felt like the latter to me was The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain. It basically featured a lot of minigames with a few mind-working puzzles at times.
Because of that game, I figured I should give another Dr. Brain game a chance sometime. That’s where Castle of Dr. Brain comes in which is in fact a much older game. Unlike the one I experienced however this was a far more challenging experience. Despite being an adult, I found myself stumped at more than one point within the copious puzzles.
The game is part of the Sierra Discovery Series which is certainly meant as a teaching tool. The only problem here is that a few of the puzzles seem way too intense for a child to solve. Either that, or I have really lost my way with logic puzzles. All the same, there was a great deal of variety between them that was much appreciated.
One of my favorite puzzles involved one that taught the basics of how binary octets turn into “numbers”. I’m always a big proponent of friendly methods of teaching children aspects of computer technology and language. Anyway, beyond that, there were some other neat brain teasers and relatively few pure minigames. Any child playing this today is probably a genius.
3 out of 5 alpacas
