History VideoGame / DrBrain

* MadScientist: That's a [[IncrediblyLamePun no-Brainer!]]

Sometime after the fourth game was released, the rights to the Dr. Brain series were acquired by Knowledge Adventure, creators of the ''VideoGame/JumpStart'' series, and they released four more games: ''Dr. Brain Thinking Games: Puzzle Madness'' and ''IQ Adventure'', ''Dr. Brain: Action Reaction'', and ''The Adventures of Dr. Brain''. The Knowledge Adventure games recast Dr. Brain as a twenty-something genius instead of a mad scientist in his sixties. The ''Thinking Games'' sub-series had less of an emphasis on educational content and focused more on solving puzzles, while ''Action Reaction'' is a straight-up first-person 3D platformer with a few puzzles thrown in.

The third installment, ''The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain'' was released on a hybrid CD for Windows 3.1 and UsefulNotes/MacOS and included digitized speech in place of text instructions, although the game would only work if the user manually set their display color-depth to 256 colors. The only files written to the user's hard drive were the saved games, requiring the CD to play the game.

In the second game, ''The Island of Dr. Brain'', the protagonist is now Brain's apprentice, and must travel to Dr. Brain's secret island to retrieve a massive battery, which is to be used to power Brain's newest contraption. Once again the island is a fairly-linear series of puzzles, each one requiring different skills to solve. Almost all puzzles in this game are either completely new, or are advanced versions of the puzzles presented in the original game. For the most part however, the Island is a more difficult game than its predecessor thanks to some truly devious puzzles. The use of a calculator can come in handy. In addition, the game keeps a scoring sheet of all puzzles solved within a single run. The game awards a gold "plaque" for solving puzzles on the highest difficulty, silver for medium, and bronze for easy. Also, unlike the first game, most of the puzzles are randomly generated and can be re-completed as many times as you want during a single game.

Sometime after the fourth game was released, the rights to the Dr. Brain series were acquired by Knowledge Adventure, creators of the ''VideoGame/JumpStart'' series, and they released four more games: ''Dr. Brain Thinking Games: Puzzle Madness'' and ''IQ Adventure'', ''Dr. Brain: Action Reaction'', and ''The Adventures of Dr. Brain''. The Knowledge Adventure games recast Dr. Brain as a twenty-something genius instead of mad scientist in his sixties. The ''Thinking Games'' sub-series had less of an emphasis on educational content and focused more on solving puzzles, while ''Action Reaction'' is a straight up first-person 3D platformer with a few puzzles thrown in.

The first two games, ''Castle Of Dr. Brain'' and ''The Island Of Dr. Brain'' were made for MS-DOS using 256-colour VGA graphics, support for common sound cards and shipped on floppy disks.

The third installment, ''The Lost Mind Of Dr. Brain'' was released on a hybrid CD for Windows 3.1 and UsefulNotes/MacOS and included digitized speech in place of text instructions, although the game would only work if the user manually set their display color-depth to 256 colors. The only files written to the user's hard drive were the saved games, requiring the CD to play the game.

All three games work perfectly under UsefulNotes/DOSBox (or Windows 3.1 under [=DOSBox=] in the case of the third game). Alternatively ScummVM added support for the first two games.

!!'''Tropes in the series:'''

** TowersOfHanoi: Third screen in ''Island of Dr. Brain'' has one with 4, 5 or 7 discs. Takes a long time on Expert difficulty and is one of the few puzzles in the game which isn't randomised.

Sometime after the fourth game was released, the rights to the Dr. Brain series were acquired by Knowledge Adventure, creators of the ''VideoGame/JumpStart'' series, and they released four more games (''Dr. Brain Thinking Games: Puzzle Madness'' and ''IQ Adventure'', ''Dr. Brain: Action Reaction'', and ''The Adventures of Dr. Brain.'') The Knowledge Adventure games recast Dr. Brain as a twenty-something genius instead of mad scientist in his sixties. The ''Thinking Games'' sub-series had less of an emphasis on educational content and focused more on solving puzzles, while ''Action Reaction'' is a straight up first-person 3D platformer with a few puzzles thrown in.

* KnightsAndKnaves: The ProgrammingGame in ''Castle'' requires you to deal with three robot heads, one of which always tells the truth (and will always follow your instructions), one of which always lies (and will always do the opposite of what you tell it to do), and one of which alternates (and will alternate between doing what you tell it and doing the opposite). Of course, the game doesn't tell you which is which. A similar minigame appears in the sequel, but there the heads are properly labeled.

* HintsAreForLosers: Using the HintSystem reduces your overall game score, and in the third game, it also reduces the value of the puzzles, making them take all the longer to complete.
* KnightsAndKnaves: The ProgrammingGame in ''Castle'' requires you to deal with three robot heads, one of which always tells the truth (and will always follow your instructions), one of which always lies (and will always do the opposite of what you tell it to do), and one of which alternates (and will alternate between doing what you tell it and doing the opposite).

* HintsAreForLosers: Using the HintSystem reduce your overall game score, and in the third game, it also reduces the value of the puzzles, making them take all the longer to complete.