About BrainSnail

Tiny quizzes. Big brain. BrainSnail is a study app built on the idea that small daily practice beats occasional cramming.

What this site is

BrainSnail is a learning app you can play in a browser or on Android. It covers 22 subjects, broken into 390 units and 8,067 short steps, with 46,177 questions in total. Tracks begin at primary school level and build towards secondary and, in several subjects, introductory university material.

The website has three parts. The Learn section lets you browse every subject and unit, see what each one covers and read worked example questions before you start. The blog publishes standalone explainers on topics from across those subjects. And /play is the game itself, free and playable in the browser.

Who makes it

BrainSnail is an independent project by SnailPixel, a small studio that also makes several other browser and Android games. It is not backed by a publisher or a school system, which means it is free to cover subjects in the order that makes sense rather than to any particular curriculum.

Being small has trade-offs and it is worth being straight about them. There is no large editorial department here. What there is instead is an open corrections process, described on the how we write questions page, and a genuine commitment to fixing errors quickly when they are reported.

How BrainSnail teaches

Every unit is split into short steps rather than long lessons, because a five minute session you actually do beats an hour you keep postponing. Questions are drawn from a pool each time rather than being a fixed test, so replaying a step gives you different questions and tests recall rather than memory of the order.

Questions come in more than twenty formats, including multiple choice, true or false, matching, ordering, sorting, typing the answer and filling blanks. That variety is deliberate. Answering the same layout repeatedly teaches you to recognise the layout, not the material.

Every question carries an explanation, shown whether you answer correctly or not. Getting something right for the wrong reason is easy, and the explanation is there to catch that.

Who it is for

Mostly people studying something on their own: students revising a subject they are already taught, adults filling a gap they never covered, and anyone who wants a few minutes of something more useful than scrolling. The reading level sits at roughly upper primary and above, and several tracks reach secondary and introductory undergraduate depth in their later units.

Teachers use it too, and the learn section exists partly for that: every unit lists what it covers and shows worked examples, so you can see whether it matches what you are teaching before pointing anyone at it.

What BrainSnail is not

It is not a curriculum and it is not accredited. The units are ordered the way the material builds rather than the way any particular syllabus sequences it, which makes it useful alongside a course and a poor substitute for one.

It is also not a teacher. Short questions with explanations are good at building recall and at showing you what you have not understood. They are not good at the parts of learning that need someone to notice you are stuck and ask why. For anything that matters - an exam, a qualification, a subject you need rather than want - use this as practice alongside a real course.

How it is paid for

The browser game is free to play and no account is required to start. An optional account saves your progress across devices. The Android app is free with ads, and there is an optional one-off premium unlock that removes them.

This website carries advertising, which is what pays for the hosting and the time that goes into the content. Ads are separate from the material: no unit, question or article is written because an advertiser wanted it, nothing here is sponsored, and there are no affiliate links. If that ever changes it will be disclosed on the page it applies to rather than buried here.

Subjects covered

Get in touch

For corrections, questions, bug reports, press or anything else, email hello@brainsnail.com. Corrections to question content are the most useful thing you can send, and they get priority.

You can also read our privacy policy, terms and support page.