Puzzles for older people: which to choose and how to adapt them
What to look for in a puzzle when eyesight tires or hands are less steady, which work better on paper and which on screen, and what to avoid.
Searching for «puzzles for older people» almost always returns the same thing: a list of sudokus and word searches in large print. That is not wrong, but it falls short, because the real problem is usually not the size of the print.
This article is about the rest: what makes a puzzle work or not work past a certain age, and how to choose accordingly. It holds whether it is for you or you are looking on someone else's behalf.
First thing: no clock
If there is one thing to take from here, it is this. The timer is what has put most people off puzzles, and almost never through inability: through discomfort.
A running clock does two bad things. It pushes you to try at random instead of reasoning, which is the opposite of what a logic puzzle asks. And it turns an enjoyable activity into a test, with the exam feeling that brings.
Almost every good puzzle survives perfectly well without a clock. A crossword is no worse for taking you forty minutes. So on screen, check whether the game can be played without a counter; on paper that problem does not exist, which is half the reason paper still wins.
What to look for on screen
If it is going to be on a tablet or phone, four things matter more than the rest:
Button size, not print size. People talk a lot about print and little about steadiness. A 9×9 sudoku grid on a phone has cells under a centimetre; missing the cell and writing in the one next door is what makes people give up. On a tablet the same game is comfortable. If there is a tablet in the house, that is the answer.
That it can be undone. An irreversible mistake at minute twenty ruins the whole game.
High contrast, no flourishes. Light text on dark, or black on white. Fine gradients and grey-on-grey are pretty and hard to read.
No compulsory sounds or flashing. They should be switchable.
The ones that tend to work best
Word search. The most forgiving of all: it requires learning no rules, you always make progress — every word found is a win — and there is no way to get stuck. If someone has not done puzzles in years, start here.
Crossword. The king, and rightly so. It combines vocabulary, general knowledge and deduction, and it has one enormous virtue: you can leave it half done and come back. It also rewards exactly what accumulates over the years, which is knowing things.
Sudoku, with caveats. Excellent for the head, but choose the size. The 4×4 and 6×6 exist and are not «for children»: they are more comfortable and the logic is identical. Starting on a hard 9×9 is the fastest route to deciding sudoku is not for you. There is a step-by-step guide if you want the technique.
Riddles. Very underrated. They need no grid and no fine motor control, they can be done aloud, and they work in company, a factor almost no list mentions and one that matters a great deal.
The ones that cause most trouble
- Anything against the clock by design, like quick arithmetic.
- Anything requiring you to drag a finger across the screen precisely.
- Anything that punishes a mistake by removing lives without warning.
- Anything you have to start from scratch if you are interrupted.
It is not that they are bad games; it is that they add a difficulty that has nothing to do with thinking.
Paper is still a good idea
With everything said about screens, the obvious is worth stating: for many people paper is simply better. You see the whole thing at a glance, there is no interface to learn, you can write in pencil, it does not switch off and it does not interrupt with notifications.
We have a section of printable puzzles with sudokus and word searches ready to run off the printer, plus a word search maker you can feed whatever words you like. That last one works surprisingly well as a gift: a grid with the grandchildren's names, or the family's home towns, gets solved with rather more enthusiasm than a generic one.
On the «preventing decline» claim
This needs saying plainly, because the opposite is sold hard: a puzzle is not a medical treatment. The evidence on cognitive training says you mostly improve at what you practise, and that transfer to daily life is modest. Anyone promising to prevent disease with a game is selling smoke.
Which takes away none of the good reasons: it is an enjoyable stretch of time, it keeps the head working on something that is not passive television, it gives a small daily satisfaction and it can be shared. That is plenty. If you want the detail, we wrote about what the science says.
Where to start
Word search on paper to get going. Crossword when you want something with more substance. A 6×6 sudoku if pure logic appeals. And no clock, ever.
The fifteen MenteBrillante puzzles are in the web version, which runs in a desktop or tablet browser with nothing to install.