Do not trust brain training games
You will get better at the game. That is where it stops.
Do this
If you want general cognitive benefit, prioritise sleep, aerobic exercise, hearing and vision correction, education and social engagement. If you enjoy the games, play them for enjoyment.
Why it works
Improvement on trained tasks is real and reliable. Transfer to untrained abilities or everyday functioning is where the evidence collapses. A consensus statement signed by dozens of cognitive scientists concluded the claims outran the data, and the largest trials find little far transfer.
Where it fails
Some specific interventions in specific clinical populations show more promise, and the field is not uniformly negative. The claim being rejected is the commercial one: that general puzzle games meaningfully improve real-world cognition in healthy adults.
How you’ll know
Ask whether anything outside the app got easier. That is the only measure that was ever being sold.