Skip to content

Stenciletto stencil game for mobile devices

A beautifully simple little game to challenge your visual and spatial perception.
Stenciletto  is a puzzle game based  on an old IQ test, the Stencil Design Test.

It’s inventor, Dr. Grace Arthur, created ways to  measure visual and spatial perception – core thinking skills that other IQ tests were not taking into consideration. She showed that non-verbal games were also a very good indicator of intelligence and, as a result, her work fundamentally changed IQ testing.  Since then, all IQ tests include non-verbal challenges. 

Psychologists now realize that playing games and puzzles can develop the logical reasoning skills that IQ tests are measuring. But –  more importantly –  they are actually good for you as they can improve brain functions and help slow cognitive decline. 

Stenciletto can be played as a mobile game – where you can move the stencils – or as a static game, where you’ll need a pen and paper to write down your answer.

Stenciletto makes you use many parts of your brain simultaneously.

What makes this game so challenging?

Look at the image below? How is this stencil design made?

Place the shapes in the correct order to make the design shown. Start with the solid square at the back, ending with the stencil at the top.

In our testing, 90% of players got the answer wrong. Most people said the solution is B H D.

Here’s the correct solution… it’s B K D.

Grace Arthur designed the Stencil Design Test to be mentally challenging.

Rather than using solid shapes, she cleverly cut the shapes from the center of cards, creating stencils. So what you’re seeing is a shape that’s familiar but presented in an unfamiliar format, thus engaging several parts of your brain simultaneously.

  • Firstly, visual perception –   you have to analyze two dimensional geometric shapes, comparing them to find similarities and differences.
  • Next, spatial perception –  at the same time you have to analyze these shapes in three-dimensions, working out their relative order.
  • Very importantly, problem solving – as only part of an underlying shape is visible, you must resort to inferential and deductive reasoning to work out how the design is made. 
  • And finally, memory is very important; the game gets much easier when you memorize the properties of the shapes, and the composite shapes they create. 
Brain-training in action!

At first, Stenciletto seems incredibly hard and you’ll really need to concentrate. You can feel your brain working, trying to make sense of the task. 

“Just a minute – let me think!” your brain is telling you.

But after a couple of games, it starts getting easier, even though the designs are getting harder.

Your brain begins to remember the shapes and their properties. It starts to recognize patterns that recur frequently. You begin to self correct your mistakes, and might even get confident enough to win a life or two.

To maintain a good brain challenge, Stenciletto has four levels:

  • Seven Steps, the free training level, will build your confidence by familiarising your brain with the shapes, composites, and recurring patterns necessary to go to the next level.
  • Four & More is the logical progression after completing Seven Steps. There are eight games and, like Seven Steps, they gradually increase in difficulty to maintain a good level of brain challenge.
  • The hardest level, Challenge, is a logical progression from Four & More. Like previous levels, they gradually increase in complexity to keep your brain stimulated.
  • Easy Threes is easier than Seven Steps and is for beginners, children, players who struggle to recognize shapes,  and players with cognitive impairments. Each game uses just three shapes, and they don’t get harder as the games progress. There are no composite shapes.
Perseverance and motivation

Recognizing that you’re making progress is extremely important, so every time you complete a game you’re awarded a smiley. 

But not just any old smiley! 

Our jolly little animations are based on famous people from fiction, history, mythology, fairytales and folklore. Any smiley awards you’ve won are stored in your Smiley Bank for you to use or share. 

More about Stenciletto
UPDATE: Stenciletto Version 3 is now available!

The stencil game just got better. This upgrade has internal changes to fix bugs and bad app behaviour. Some of these were reported by you and others come from our opt-in analytics. Thank you to all of you who have helped us in this process.

Stenciletto Version 3 is now available from the App Store, Google Play and Amazon Fire Store. Any purchases you’ve made in Version 2 are still valid for Version 3. Also, your state of play and smiley achievements are carried forward.

New features:

  • Lives are added automatically in Immortal mode
  • An option added allowing a quick change to Immortal mode immediately after purchase
  • A puzzle info button has been added to puzzle page
  • The ‘tap to zoom’ on the puzzle solution feature has been extended

Improvements:

  • Faster and smoother graphics and transitions
  • Improved help guide and tips
  • In-app purchasing made simpler and faster
  • Better crash handling and reporting
  • Stability improvements