Cognido is a German-made, university-student project that's been downloaded 40,000 times

• Cognido is a brain-training game made by university student David Schreiber
• It's a solo project that offers quick-paced matches against friends and strangers
• Cognido challenges you with problems that evolve from simple math equations to trivia and more

If you've ever been to university and done, well, any kind of course you'll probably remember when you had to do a project that was then pushed out into the wild. Whether that was a website, social media project or otherwise. Most are probably dead and forgotten, but some university projects defy the odds and shoot for success, such as today's subject Cognido.

Developed by university student David Schreiber, this is a solo-developed multiplayer brain-training game. The twist here is the pace, with quick matches against other players to duel your brains against friends and strangers alike.

Already sitting pretty at 40,000 downloads, the success of this project is both impressive and easily understandable. I think most of us have fond memories of old Doctor Kawashima and his brain training, although the squid-like mascot Nido for Cognido is not necessarily as encouraging or nice as the kindly old Japanese doctor.

Built in Germany

That's not to say that Cognido is necessarily some university-mandated project, otherwise, I'm not sure it'd offer both free and premium play. Yes if you do want to get the most out of Cognido, you will need a subscription, however, you can also give it a try with a free trial to see if it's for you.

A major new update is also apparently in development to bring even more content to Cognido, including the new Clash mode that lets you compete in rounds of four to six players, deciding who the last brain standing will be.

Still, if there's anything I know about puzzle fanatics, it's that they're rarely satisfied with just one way to exercise their brain. So if Cognido leaves you wanting more, why not try digging into our list of the top 25 best puzzle games for Android and our equivalent list for iOS?