By UNICO STUDIO
Report updated Apr 19, 2026
Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories
For casual gamers of all ages seeking riddle-based challenges and lighthearted, story-driven mental exercises.
Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories is a well-regarded games app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 4.8/5 rating from 1.9M reviews, it maintains solid user satisfaction. Users particularly appreciate engaging and addictive gameplay, though excessive ad frequency remains a common concern.
What is Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories?
Current Momentum
v1.24 · 1d ago
MaintenanceThe app is currently in maintenance mode, with the most recent updates limited to bug fixes and performance improvements.
Active Nemesis
Brain Out -Tricky riddle games
By EYEWIND
Other Rivals
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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What Are The Key Features?
Integrates narrative elements and colorful characters into traditional brain teasers.
Puzzles designed to break common sense and require unconventional solutions.
Allows users to play the full game without an active internet connection.
How much does it cost?
- Free (Ad-supported)
- In-app purchases for hint currency (Light bulbs)
- Subscription for ad removal
Monetization is heavily reliant on high-volume ad impressions, which is currently the primary source of user friction.
Who Built It?
UNICO STUDIO
Providing casual gamers with humorous, narrative-driven brain teasers and logic puzzles designed for short, offline-accessible sessions.
Portfolio
13
Apps
Who is UNICO STUDIO?
Unico Studio has established a dominant position in the casual logic category by evolving the 'Brain Test' franchise from abstract puzzles into narrative-driven 'tricky stories' with recurring characters. Their strategic advantage lies in a high-volume production engine that rapidly iterates on successful mechanics, such as mystery-solving and 'Who is?' scenarios, to maintain a massive market footprint. The portfolio is currently signaling a move toward deeper meta-layers, incorporating inventory systems and interactive dialogues to increase retention in a category typically prone to high churn.
Who is UNICO STUDIO for?
- Casual mobile gamers seeking low-stress mental stimulation
- Attracted to humorous scenarios
- Mystery-solving logic challenges
Portfolio momentum
Maintaining an extremely high development cadence with 96 releases in the last 6 months and 49 out of 50 apps currently active.
What other apps does UNICO STUDIO make?
Woody Sort: Color Puzzle
Screw Out 3D: Nut Sort Jam
Brain Test Premium
Game is Hard
Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles
Brain Test All-Star: IQ Boost
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 100 of 160 total reviews analyzed · Based on 160 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a excited sentiment. Users appreciate engaging and addictive gameplay and offline playability, but report excessive ad frequency and broken hint/reward system.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What is the competitive landscape for Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories?
How's The Games Market?
How does it evolve in the Games market?
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | Trivia | AndroidFree | #11 | |
| 🇦🇪 UAE | Trivia | AndroidGrossing | #41 | ▼2 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Head to Head
The target app should double down on its 'Story' USP to differentiate from this rival's abstract approach. To compete on mechanics, the target needs to introduce more device-interaction puzzles (gyroscope, light sensor) to match the rival's 'out-of-the-box' reputation.
What sets Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories apart
Character-driven IP: The target app uses recurring protagonists (Tom, Emily, Agent Smith) which creates a cohesive 'universe' and stronger long-term user affinity compared to isolated levels.
Narrative Context: Puzzles are framed as 'helping' a character, providing a clearer 'Why' for the user than abstract logic tests.
What's Brain Out -Tricky riddle games's Edge
Mechanical Variety: Leverages a wider array of mobile sensors and OS-level features for puzzles, creating more 'viral' moments.
Global Scale: With nearly 3x the rating volume, it commands higher organic discoverability and a larger historical data set for level optimization.
Contenders
Specializes in 'Who is lying?' and 'Who is the father?' investigative logic puzzles, creating a detective-lite experience.
Aggressive content expansion strategy with a significantly higher update frequency than the target app.
Core UX loop is restricted to a single action (erasing), making it more accessible for hyper-casual sessions than the target's complex drag-and-drop stories.
Uses 'revealing' mechanics to drive humor and shock value, often focusing on hidden secrets behind objects.
Features a cleaner, more 'premium' UI/UX compared to the target's hand-drawn, cartoonish art style.
Positions itself as a 'brain trainer' with a more serious tone, targeting an older demographic than the target's playful audience.
Focuses on 'Save the character' scenarios where the user must choose the correct tool to prevent a disaster.
Heavier use of 3D-rendered assets in marketing and gameplay compared to the target's 2D illustrations.
Peers
Requires users to find specific items within a scene to solve the riddle, adding a visual search layer the target lacks.
Focuses on 'clue collection' as a progression mechanic.
Gameplay is limited to choosing between two items (A or B) to progress the story.
Relies heavily on 'fail-state humor' where the wrong choice leads to a comedic animation.
Themed entirely around a detective protagonist, creating a more focused genre experience than the target's variety stories.
Simplified interaction model compared to the target's physics-based puzzles.
Brain Up - Drama Puzzle Game
★3.9 (347K)Tang Thi Thuy
📈Focuses on social and relationship 'drama' scenarios rather than general logic riddles.
Puzzles are themed around infidelity, dating, and social awkwardness to drive high emotional engagement.
Uses a 'Drama' tag to appeal to fans of interactive story apps.
New Kids on the Block
Integrates 'cleaning' and 'washing' mechanics (ASMR-adjacent) as the primary way to solve logic puzzles.
Uses a 'reveal' mechanic where the user 'washes away' parts of the screen to change the context of the riddle.
The outtake for Brain Test 2: Tricky Stories
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Strong character-driven IP (Tom, Emily, Agent Smith)
- High organic trust with 1.9M+ ratings
- Robust offline functionality
Critical Frictions
- Aggressive ad-to-gameplay ratio
- Broken reward/hint mechanics
- Lack of hardware-sensor puzzles
Growth Levers
- Integrate device-sensor puzzles to match Brain Out
- Expand into 'Drama' themed story arcs
- Fix hint system to improve IAP conversion
Market Threats
- High-velocity updates from Braindom
- ASMR-hybrid innovation from Brain Wash
- Declining grossing rank (↓7)
What are the next best moves?
Optimize ad-to-gameplay ratio
Excessive ads are the #1 complaint theme and the primary driver of negative sentiment.
Fix broken hint/reward buttons
Medium-frequency complaint that directly blocks user progression and revenue from ad-rewards.
Incorporate hardware-sensor puzzles
Identified as a key differentiator for the Nemesis (Brain Out) that the target app currently lacks.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Hardware-level interactions (shaking, volume, sensors) — available in Brain Out
- ASMR/Cleaning mechanics — available in Brain Wash
- 3D-rendered assets — available in Help Me
Key Takeaways
Brain Test 2 is a category leader in narrative puzzles, but it is currently over-monetizing at the expense of user experience. To maintain its top-50 free ranking, the PM must fix the broken reward loop and reduce ad friction before competitors with higher update velocities erode its market share.
Where Is It Heading?
Stable
v1.24.05 updated April 2026 — indicates active maintenance but a lack of new feature expansion.
Rankings show a downward trend in both Free (↓3) and Grossing (↓7) positions.
Positive mood regarding 'addictive' gameplay suggests strong core retention mechanics.