While most gaming apps are free, a good handful of them all have in-app purchases, which makes it frustrating to gamers who don’t want to pay for extras. Sometimes it’s worth sticking it out in games like “Candy Crush Saga,” and “Clash of Clans,” but “Lumosity” sets the bar high for patience.

As it says in the advertising, “Lumosity” is an app that is designed to “Work out your brain.” The free version allows you three games a day before you have to decide if you’d like to pay to continue or leave it forever. There are 10 different games, and all are different when you come back to play each day.

Three of the games on offer are “Speed Match,” “Memory Matrix,” and “Color Match.” The most difficult of the three is “Memory Matrix,” a game that tests how well you can remember the placement of tiles in a square grid. Out of 15 different puzzles, it adds more tiles, upping the difficulty.

“Speed Match” is tricky. A symbol such as a triangle or a square is shown, and you have to decide if the next card matches the previous card or not. Once you build up speed, it does get harder.

The last game, “Color Match,” is similar to “Speed Match,” where two cards appear on your screen with two different colors on each. The player then has to decide if the top word matches the ink color of the bottom card. Indeed, it is quite confusing, and I made quite a few errors while playing this game.

The biggest problem with “Lumosity” is the price of admission. No, it’s not the $0.99 you usually pay for extra lives in other games. “Lumosity” asks a subscription fee. For one month, it will cost you $14.99. One-year’s subscription is $79.99.

For some, this app may be worth a look. For others, it will work your wallet more than your brain.

★★★☆☆

jelkelly@mavs.coloradomesa.edu