I would suggest trying Set (https://setwithfriends.com/) for this purpose! Being good at Set is correlated with raw cognitive power (at least anecdotally around my friends), and I do feel like my solve time fluctuates based on how quickly I'm thinking on any given day.
I don't know if it qualifies as "fun" for you, but gwern has written about dual-n-back, which allegedly has a very strong correlation with IQ, and there's reason to think there's a causative factor that links both (working memory size).
The late psychologist Seth Roberts used a simple reaction time test to assess his cognitive performance. The test takes a few minutes, using a computer. It's not exactly a game, but I find it mildly enjoyable. You hover your index finger above the "5" key on the keyboard. Then the program displays a random target digit between 2 and 8 inclusive, and you have to hit the corresponding key as fast as you can. A session consists of 35 targets. Seth claimed that the test was a good way to measure your brain health. I collaborated with him on the project until his untimely death about five years ago. Then I pursued other interests, but I'd really like to get back into this area again. If anyone is interested in collaborating with me, please email me at alexc@aya.yale.edu. I found this type of self-experimentation to be fascinating, and I'd like to pursue it again. But it's always easier if two or more people can work on it. I'm not great at statistics, so I'm especially interested in hearing from someone who knows stats -- but everyone is welcome. Here's a link to a PDF that shows my study on the effects of caffeine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHt_OFTz-87arWevIfz6wAKTce_ZFcVW/view?usp=sharing
Card games are the best in my experience as a sweaty-ass gamer and stimulant-experimenter for being fun and cognitive-performance-testing
It's my feeling that "how much does modafinil increase my elo in a game" is probably a pretty good proxy for how much it tests cognitive performance, and I would second Set, and also recommend Dominion (it meets the above criteria, also I just think it's really fun and neat).
Slay the Spire is also a game that *really, really* puts you to the test cognitively, but it's not as low variance and the games are about an hour long each, plus you have to learn how a bunch of stuff works before you know enough to really plan ahead and get rewarded. It wouldn't make any sense to get into it just for this experiment, but if you enjoy it in itself enough to get there, it's a great brainblaster
Pardon the necropost but I used Duolingo to quickly gauge my mental acuity (not for long-term tracking but it would probably work for that as well). It's not a game but does seem to fit most of the criteria.
I didn't strictly quantify my results but judged my condition by number of mistakes/length of streaks. One drawback is that only the recap lessons would give enough consistency to be used as hard data, and to get the recap lessons hard data you'd need to do regular lessons, but in general gamified learning apps may fit this purpose as well and/or with better side effects.
I would suggest trying Set (https://setwithfriends.com/) for this purpose! Being good at Set is correlated with raw cognitive power (at least anecdotally around my friends), and I do feel like my solve time fluctuates based on how quickly I'm thinking on any given day.
I don't know if it qualifies as "fun" for you, but gwern has written about dual-n-back, which allegedly has a very strong correlation with IQ, and there's reason to think there's a causative factor that links both (working memory size).
https://www.gwern.net/DNB-FAQ
Sudoku maybe? Depends how you define fast
https://mineswifter.com/?lang=en
The late psychologist Seth Roberts used a simple reaction time test to assess his cognitive performance. The test takes a few minutes, using a computer. It's not exactly a game, but I find it mildly enjoyable. You hover your index finger above the "5" key on the keyboard. Then the program displays a random target digit between 2 and 8 inclusive, and you have to hit the corresponding key as fast as you can. A session consists of 35 targets. Seth claimed that the test was a good way to measure your brain health. I collaborated with him on the project until his untimely death about five years ago. Then I pursued other interests, but I'd really like to get back into this area again. If anyone is interested in collaborating with me, please email me at alexc@aya.yale.edu. I found this type of self-experimentation to be fascinating, and I'd like to pursue it again. But it's always easier if two or more people can work on it. I'm not great at statistics, so I'm especially interested in hearing from someone who knows stats -- but everyone is welcome. Here's a link to a PDF that shows my study on the effects of caffeine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHt_OFTz-87arWevIfz6wAKTce_ZFcVW/view?usp=sharing
Card games are the best in my experience as a sweaty-ass gamer and stimulant-experimenter for being fun and cognitive-performance-testing
It's my feeling that "how much does modafinil increase my elo in a game" is probably a pretty good proxy for how much it tests cognitive performance, and I would second Set, and also recommend Dominion (it meets the above criteria, also I just think it's really fun and neat).
Slay the Spire is also a game that *really, really* puts you to the test cognitively, but it's not as low variance and the games are about an hour long each, plus you have to learn how a bunch of stuff works before you know enough to really plan ahead and get rewarded. It wouldn't make any sense to get into it just for this experiment, but if you enjoy it in itself enough to get there, it's a great brainblaster
Pardon the necropost but I used Duolingo to quickly gauge my mental acuity (not for long-term tracking but it would probably work for that as well). It's not a game but does seem to fit most of the criteria.
I didn't strictly quantify my results but judged my condition by number of mistakes/length of streaks. One drawback is that only the recap lessons would give enough consistency to be used as hard data, and to get the recap lessons hard data you'd need to do regular lessons, but in general gamified learning apps may fit this purpose as well and/or with better side effects.