Brain Drain is a puzzle game where you recreate patterns shown in the corner of the screen using symbols like apples or hearts. The main playing field features these symbols, but they're randomly switched around. You control a frame enclosing four symbols and rotate them clockwise by pressing buttons. Your goal is to solve levels within a time limit.
As you progress through the game, special effects become more challenging to deal with. "?" blocks hide symbols, symbols rotate on their own, or the controls are reversed in higher difficulty levels. To aid you, you can earn power-ups like clock (stops time for 20 seconds), flash (skips the current level), and credit (gives a second try after time runs out). The "Brain Race" mode requires solving a set number of levels as quickly as possible.