Brain Test Alternatives: More Riddles, or Real Logic Puzzles

If you have run out of Brain Test levels and want more of the same, the closest picks are its own sequel, Brain Test 2, and the look-alikes Brain Out, Braindom and IQ Boost: one-screen trick puzzles where the answer hides in the wording or the picture. All of them are free with ads and sell hint currency. If the lamps and the weekly VIP offer are what wore you out, or you want puzzles you can reason your way through instead of spotting a gag, a logic puzzle is the different kind of challenge. Sudoku Royale is one, with no ads and nothing to buy.

Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles has been on the App Store since 2019 and has 1.48 million US ratings. Its listing promises "no timers, no stress" and family friendly puzzles. It also sells lamps, the currency you spend on hints, and a weekly VIP subscription with a 3-day free trial that, per the listing, adds 100 lamps, removes ads, doubles the daily gift and makes skips and hints cheaper.

The App Store facts

From each app's US App Store listing, checked October 26, 2026. Prices and paid items change, so check the listing before you buy.

How each app helps when you are stuck

In a trick puzzle game, being stuck is the business model: the hint is what you pay for. This table puts the help each listing describes next to the currency it sells for it.

Why Brain Test players look elsewhere

Three reasons come up, and they lead to different apps.

• You finished it. A trick puzzle is spent once you have seen the trick, so the levels run out. The fix is more trick puzzles, starting with the sequels.
• The lamps. The paid lamp packs on the listing start at 250 Lamps $1.99, 500 Lamps $2.99, 1000 Lamps $4.99. If you keep buying them, or the VIP trial ($3.99, weekly) renewed before you noticed, it is worth knowing the alternatives charge in much the same way.
• The trick wears thin. Some players start to want a puzzle that rewards careful thinking every time, not one flash of lateral insight. That is a logic puzzle, and the second half of this page is for you.

More trick puzzles

Brain Test 2: the obvious next step

Same studio, same lamp economy, same humor. The change is that the puzzles sit inside stories with recurring characters: its listing mentions helping Tom the Cat against the Lion King and running a farm with Emily. It also says it plays offline. The same listing names Brain Test 3 and Brain Test 4 from the same makers, so if you like the format there is a long road ahead.

Brain Out

Eyewind's riddle game leans harder on absurd answers and sound effects, and its listing frames each level as a test of your IQ. It sells keys and tips instead of lamps. We compare its paid items with the others on our Brain Out alternatives page.

Braindom

The broadest mix of the group: riddles, word games, color tricks, trivia and short mysteries where you work out who is lying or who the culprit is. A mascot called Brian runs the show. See Braindom alternatives for what its Diamond Membership covers.

IQ Boost

Brightika's game mixes trick puzzles with plainer logic tasks and warns you that the obvious answer is often wrong. It sells tip packs and ad removal and, unlike Brain Test, no subscription appears among its listed purchases.

A different kind of challenge: logic puzzles

A Brain Test level is solved by one insight: a hidden object, a word read literally, a rule the question never stated. Once you have it, there is nothing left to think about. A logic puzzle works the other way around. The rules never change and never trick you, and the puzzle is solved by a chain of small, certain steps. You can always explain why a number or a square has to be where it is. There is no wording to reread and no hidden object; the work is all in front of you.

That makes logic puzzles slower to get into but endless once you are in. There is always another grid, and the hardest ones take real technique. Our guide to solving sudoku without guessing shows what that chain of steps looks like.

Sudoku Royale

Our own app, so weigh this paragraph accordingly. It is classic 9x9 sudoku with six levels from Easy to Extreme and a library of about half a million puzzles. When you stall for about a minute and a half, a hint lights up, and it is free: it names the technique and the cell to look at, not the answer, and links to a lesson (it needs a connection). The Journey teaches one technique per chapter if you have never played. There are no ads, no lamps, no coins and no subscription. The limits: it is sudoku only, iPhone and iPad only, there is no undo, and it has none of Brain Test's jokes.

Nonogram.com

Easybrain's nonogram app: shade squares from number clues until a picture appears. The reveal at the end gives it a little of the surprise Brain Test players like. It is free with ads and sells coin packs; our Nonogram.com alternatives page explains how nonograms and sudoku differ.

When Brain Test is still the better pick

• You play with other people in the room. Passing a phone around to argue over a riddle is what these games do best. Its listing calls it suitable for sharing with friends.
• You want to laugh. Sudoku and nonograms are calm and satisfying. They are not funny.
• You do not want to learn anything first. A trick puzzle needs no rules. Hard sudoku needs techniques you build up over time.
• You play on Android. Brain Test is on Android too. Sudoku Royale is not.

Which to choose

Still enjoying the format: Brain Test 2, then Brain Out or Braindom. Tired of the format or of paying for lamps: try Sudoku Royale on Easy, or Nonogram.com for picture logic. For the wider field, see the brain games without ads, the best logic puzzle apps and every matchup in our sudoku app comparisons.