Brain Games for Seniors: Free and Large Print

How to turn on Larger text

Several of these games have a Menu of their own, and the switch is not in it. The Menu above a sudoku grid pauses the clock and holds Check against the solution; the Menu on a Toasty Tile Flip tray restarts the tray or opens the tray map. Larger text belongs to the CozyWorld toolbar above every game instead: on a tablet or computer it is the "A A" button labeled Larger text, and on a phone it is a row in the Game menu, which opens from the three-line button at the top left. The Accessibility page has the same switch.

You can turn it on halfway through a puzzle and keep every digit, note and found word where it was. In the sudokus the first change you will notice is the puzzle’s own digits turning near-black and heavier than yours; in the word search, the letters filling more of each square. The setting is remembered on that device for all six games and every other game that has the switch, with no account.

Number puzzles: Sprout Sudoku in large print

In sudoku you fill a 9x9 grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box holds the digits 1 to 9 once. Sprout Sudoku has 600 puzzles, 120 at each of five levels from Gentle to Expert, and each has exactly one solution that logic alone can reach. The level names the techniques you will need. Gentle puzzles fall to cells with only one digit left, and Expert adds patterns such as the swordfish.

With Larger text on, the digits fill more of each cell. The puzzle’s own digits are near-black and heavier than yours, so they differ by weight as well as color. Pencil notes get more than a third bigger and bolder, the box lines get heavier, and the counts on the number pad, the clock, hints, buttons and menus get bigger. A long hint scrolls inside its box with its buttons kept in view.

The number pad shows how many of each digit are still to place, which is useful when you cannot find the next digit by scanning. Notes can be filled by hand or with Auto, and Check against the solution is off until you turn it on in Menu. There are no lives and no mistake limits. The timer only records how long a puzzle took, and it stops whenever the game is paused or hidden.

Number puzzles: Sprout Killer Sudoku in large print

Killer sudoku keeps the sudoku rules and adds dotted cages. The digits in a cage add up to the small number in its top-left corner, and a digit never repeats inside a cage. Sprout Killer Sudoku has 480 puzzles at four levels, Easy to Expert, and a new Medium puzzle each day. Select any cell and a sign above the grid lists every combination its cage could hold, with the ones the board has ruled out struck through.

Larger text does the same to the digits and notes as in Sprout Sudoku, and adds the parts that belong to killer sudoku: the cage sums get about a third bigger, the dotted cage lines get darker and heavier, and pencil notes get bolder and a little bigger while staying clear of the cage lines. The cage sign, number pad counts, clock, hints, buttons and menus get bigger too.

There is one limit. On a phone, in a cell that holds a two-digit sum and the notes 1, 2 or 3 beside it, the sum and those notes keep their usual size so they do not touch. On a tablet or computer, or in a cell without those notes, the sums grow as described. Hints name the step, such as Cage combinations or The 45 rule, and explain it in a sentence.

Memory matching: Toasty Tile Flip, and what is timed

Toasty Tile Flip is the memory game on this page, in the old sense: cards lie face down, you turn two at a time, and a matching pair stays up. There are 20 short trays of breakfast treats in four cafe mornings, from a 12-card warm-up to 24-card trays, and clearing a tray earns a star and opens the next. Seen cards get a crumb mark, so you never need to remember which cards are still new.

Hearts decide whether you lose a tray. Turning a new card is always safe. You lose a heart when a card you have already seen turns out wrong, or when you turn a burnt slice you have already seen. A tray gives three to six hearts, and when they run out the tray is lost. Later trays add butter combos, toaster peeks, table orders, jam jars that swap two cards and triples.

Seventeen of the twenty trays have no clock. Three breakfast rush trays do, trays 14, 15 and 18, with 60 to 80 seconds each, and their clock waits for your first card or toaster peek. Pausing stops everything. When a rush clock reaches zero the tray is lost, the same as running out of hearts: the game says Time is up and offers Try again, and you can replay the tray as often as you like. Each tray opens only once the one before it has a star, so the rush trays have to be cleared to reach the trays after them.

With Larger text on, the score, butter combo, table orders, progress, clock and hints get bigger, and the hint gets two full lines instead of one. The tray map, tray cards, results and buttons get bigger too. The breakfast pictures on the cards are not redrawn by the switch, so in this game it helps with everything you read around the cards rather than the cards themselves.

Word puzzles: Cottage Word Search

Cottage Word Search has 48 themed puzzles in four seasonal books, from 8 by 8 grids in spring to 12 by 12 in winter. You drag from the first letter of a word to its last, or tap the first letter and then the last. A line that is not a listed word fades away with no penalty, and when you find the last word the leftover letters spell a saying.

Larger text sets the grid in a bolder, darker letter without shrinking the grid, and makes the word list and the found-word strike heavier. The clock only records your time, there are no lives, and Hint circles the first letter of the first word you have not found. The word games page linked below goes through the word search in detail, along with the scramble and hangman games and the printable word searches.

Tile and card patience: Teahouse Mahjong and Porch Swing Solitaire

Teahouse Mahjong is mahjong solitaire: tiles lie stacked on a board and you remove them in pairs by matching two free tiles. Larger text redraws each tile with a heavier outline and deeper color, and on the Classic set the number moves into a big corner numeral; on a phone that bolder face is the change, since the tiles keep their size there. The mahjong page linked below covers it fully, with Wisteria Court Mahjong.

Porch Swing Solitaire is Klondike, with Draw 1 or Draw 3. Larger text puts a rank about one and a half times its usual size in every card’s corner, and a covered face-up card shows the top 42% of its height instead of 27%, so a long column reads from top to bottom. The solitaire page linked below covers it and the other five solitaires.

Neither of these two is under a clock. Teahouse has no countdown, and Porch Swing has no timer unless you turn the optional one on. Porch Swing’s undo is unlimited, and Teahouse’s Hint, Shuffle and Undo are free.

Settings that help with reading or pace

These come from the games’ own pages. Sprout Sudoku and Sprout Killer Sudoku have Notes and Auto notes, number pad counts, undo and redo, and hints that explain a step before they take it. Killer Sudoku also reads out the selected cage’s combinations on the C key.

Toasty Tile Flip puts a crumb on every card you have seen. Cottage Word Search shows the directions in play for each book, so Spring Cottage, with words only across and down, is the gentlest start. Teahouse Mahjong dims tiles you cannot take yet, which you can turn off in Settings, and lets you switch between Garden and Classic tiles. Porch Swing Solitaire plays winnable deals by default and gives hints that use only what you can see.

All six games can be played with a keyboard as well as touch or a mouse, and all six list desktop, tablet and mobile as supported devices.

On paper: large print sudoku and word search to print

If you would rather use a pencil, CozyWorld has printable puzzles on its printables page. The large print sudoku packs are Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert, with six puzzles in each, one to a page and the answers on a separate last page; they come from Sprout Sudoku and each has one solution. There are also word search sets, and the large print word search page prints the twelve Spring Cottage puzzles from Cottage Word Search, one to a page.

Which one to start with

If you already know sudoku, start with Sprout Sudoku on Gentle or Easy and turn on Larger text. If you have never played it, the how-to guide linked below explains the rules and the first techniques, and Hint explains the next step in a sentence. Killer sudoku is a step further; try it once ordinary sudoku feels comfortable.

If you want something with no numbers, Cottage Word Search in the Spring Cottage book is the gentlest, and Teahouse Mahjong is the calmest tile game, since every board can be cleared and nothing counts down. If you want to try a matching game, begin with the first Toasty Tile Flip trays; the first clock does not come until tray 14.