What you do in Prime Raiders
A space shooter with 100 waves, in 10 Acts of 10. Swipe to steer and tap to fire. Blast the enemy ships, but never shoot the green pods: from the fourth wave of each Act, pods drift in among the ships and you have to stop yourself in time. Shooting one costs shield and resets your combo; letting it pass earns a bonus. Every tenth wave ends at a boss gate of timed sums, from 20 questions at the first boss to 50 at the last.
- It unlocks when you clear Cryptara or Prime Belt in Galaxy Run.
- Waves get busier as you go, and the gate sums move from adding and taking away to times tables and dividing.
- Carrying on after you lose a run (up to twice a game) comes with Pro.
Try it: 10 seconds
No pressure. Just see how it feels.
Which of these are prime?
9, 11, 15, 17, 21, 23
Show the answer
11, 17, 23
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Doc explains
Fire, fire, fire... STOP! The hardest button to press is the one you don't press. When the whole screen is shouting "shoot!" and one little green pod is whispering "not me", your brain has to slam on the brakes. Scientists call that response inhibition, and they study it with quick go and no-go games, a bit like this one.
The science idea
Response inhibition: stopping an automatic action, like pressing fire, when it is the wrong one.
A major review names inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility as the core executive functions, and lists go/no-go and stop-signal tasks among the ways inhibition is measured.1 In a go/no-go task you respond to most signals and hold back on a rare few.
What the research found
The review counts self-control over impulsive actions as part of inhibition, one of the three core executive functions alongside working memory and cognitive flexibility.1
An EEG study found that go/no-go tasks demand strong inhibition when they are fast and the "no-go" signals are rare. Slow versions with equal numbers of go and no-go trials showed far less of the brain activity linked to stopping.2
In children, measures of executive functions, including inhibition and working memory, each predicted unique differences in math ability.3
Practice builds these skills. A meta-analysis of children's executive function training found clear gains on the trained skill,4 and the major review above is optimistic that executive functions can improve with practice.1
How Prime Raiders uses it
- Most of what arrives is a target and the pods are rare, the fast, rare "no-go" pattern that demands real inhibition in lab tasks.2
- Pods arrive from the fourth wave of each Act, about one in every 5 to 7 arrivals (a design value), so stopping stays the exception.
- Shooting a pod costs 15 shield and your combo, while letting it pass earns a bonus, so holding back is worth something.
- Every tenth wave ends at a boss gate of timed sums, which brings the math into the arcade.
What this means for you
- The green pods put a well-studied idea to work: in a fast stream of targets, the rare "don't" is what asks for self-control.2
- Self-control and working memory go hand in hand with math ability in children.3
- Practising an executive skill builds that skill.4
- It is an arcade game first, with a gate of sums at every boss.
References
Written in APA 7 style. Tap a number in the text to jump here, and the arrow to jump back.
- 1
Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750 Free to read
- 2
Wessel, J. R. (2018). Prepotent motor activity and inhibitory control demands in different variants of the go/no-go paradigm. Psychophysiology, 55(3), Article e12871. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12871
- 3
Bull, R., & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children's mathematics ability: Inhibition, switching, and working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19(3), 273-293. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326942DN1903_3
- 4
Kassai, R., Futo, J., Demetrovics, Z., & Takacs, Z. K. (2019). A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on the near- and far-transfer effects among children's executive function skills. Psychological Bulletin, 145(2), 165-188. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000180
Science last checked: 2026-11-06
