Castle of Dr. Brain

Castle of Dr. Brain is a video game of the educational genre released in 1991 by Sierra Online. While all games in the series are puzzle games, this was one of games in the series that are also adventure games, using interfaces similar to King's Quest V, and Space Quest 4.

Gameplay
The object of the game is to successfully navigate the puzzles Dr. Brain has set up in order to become the mad scientist's assistant (a position Dr. Brain had advertised in the local classified section). To enter the castle, the player must play a game of memory at the front gate. Inside, the player must solve puzzles within the hallways and rooms of the castle. There are also three mazes in which the player must guide an elevator between and among different floors.

Many of the puzzles require skill in mathematics and logic, but the game requires knowledge in a broad range of subjects. One puzzle requires the player to solve a cryptogram, and the penultimate level deals primarily with astronomy. In a rather surreal level, the player must put together a jigsaw puzzle which, when completed, becomes a room through which the player passes to go to the next level.

The Castle of Dr. Brain features a point-and-click mode of gameplay and three levels of difficulty, which the player can change at any time. The player can also change the pointer from a hand, which will interact with puzzles, to an eye, which will give information about an object (occasionally leading to clues to help solve puzzles). Typically, pointing the hand or the eye at an object that isn't a puzzle will give a joke about it. The game also features Hint Coins, which the player earns by solving puzzles and can use for assistance on puzzles they are having difficulty with.

Beginning and ending
The game opens with a shot of a silhouette of Dr. Brain's castle on top of a cliff in the middle of a thunderstorm as Bach's Toccata and Fugue plays, a reference to the piece's use in classic horror movies. The castle is then hit by lightning and the scene lights up to show that the castle has several odd features to it, such as a dripping faucet sticking out of a wall and a rotating wind up key. The music becomes more upbeat at this part.

On completion of the game, Dr. Brain congratulates you, introduces the people who had a part in making the game, and states that more challenges will await you on The Island of Dr. Brain (the next game in the series).

Reception
The game was reviewed in 1992 in Dragon #180 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.