Two Fingers, but only one brain (2 F 1 B) is a series of 20 mini-games that are mixed and matched to appear two at a time on the user's screen. At first, we weren't sure we were going to like that, but we were pleasantly surprised. Our first encounter with 2F1B was last year, and we were saddened by what we perceived as ads that really got in the way of gameplay. We were recently prompted to give the app another chance. Happily, whether by design or accident, the ad situation has improved dramatically.
The puzzles range from twitch arcade skills to brain teasers, presented two at a time in random mixes. We particularly like the one where different shapes are presented in different colors; the user must respond with the color of a particular shape. The trick there is that the potential answers are all written in colored fonts that don't match the color the word describes. For instance, "green" will be written in black letters while "blue" is written in yellow.
The player has a limited amount of time to solve each puzzle, represented by a green bar at the top which slowly shrinks. We think it's plenty of time to solve the problems, even if they're both tricky brain teasers, while still being short enough to create a sense of urgency and challenge.
We would like it if there were more than 20 mini-games, but there are multiple versions of each of those, so the grand total of the number of problems that can appear and in how many different combinations they can appear in is very high. Another favorite brain teaser is one where the player is shown a hand doing a particular gesture like "thumbs up" or "okay," and is asked it's the left or right hand. While our favorite twitch puzzles tend to be the ones that involve UFOs.
The app is free to download
on the App Store, with an in-app purchase of $2 to remove the ads. As we said, we used to find the ads invasive to play. They would pop up just as we were tapping the screen to respond to a puzzle.
It felt a little, perhaps, like they maybe were trying to trick us into click through on the ad. It could also just have been inauspicious timing. We don't know what, if anything, has changed about how the ads arrive on screen, but this time around it seems like we can see them coming easier.
The graphics and music aren't the best, we have to admit, but they're serviceable, and the challenge of two minigames at once is sufficiently engaging to make up for it.
Who 2F1B is for:
Anyone interested in trying out a free game that will challenge their ability to focus and prioritize goals.
Who 2F1B might not be for:
People who prefer more variety in the types of tasks they need to perform, rather than a variety in the details of a limited set of tasks.
-- Michelle Elbert (
@mcelbert)
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