‘Mathbreakers’ Aims to Teach Kids Math through Genuinely Fun and Addicting Gameplay

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The team at the Imaginary Number Co. wanted to tackle the one field of education that nearly always seemed to drive kids away: math and its many and varied applicable uses. While the existence of educational math based games are certainly not a new concept, the Imaginary Number Co. decided that none of the games currently available even remotely resembled the games that kids actually played. Rather than creating yet another ‘animated homework game’, they decided to instead create a pseudo sandbox style adventure where players were challenged to interact with numbers in a far deeper and memorable way.

In Imaginary Number Co.’s efforts — The Mathbreakers — players find themselves deposited in a vast three dimensional landscape, wherein the evil Numbermancer has beset the realm with various mathematical traps and obstacles. The first valuable lesson players will learn in the world of Mathbreakers is that an obstacle’s value will become modified whenever a math-ball is thrown at it, effectively adding the two numbers. Basic obstacles whose value end up becoming zero will be utterly eradicated as a result, thus permitting players to progress past these barricades by cleverly using nearby math-balls.

f68acda19c62cd05c8cbcf43ef3fec98_largeThe catch is that the nearby available math-balls will almost never be what a player needs at first, thus forcing players to tinker with the very fundamental rules of math itself if they wish to progress. For example: a player might find their way forward blocked by a -1/2 barrier wall, but only have an army of +1 balls with which to throw at it (and naturally chucking no number of these will ever cause the wall to become exactly zero). The wise player — however — would instead learn to take out his mighty math sword and slice one of these +1 balls in half, yielding himself two identical +1/2 balls with which to bring down the Numbermancer’s wall.

Players will — along the way — eventually gain access to an ever widening array of math based gadgets: ray guns that send out a wave that multiplies the value of balls, gates that divide the value of balls taken through them by fixed amounts, and so much more. Naturally — as the number of mathematical widgets available to the player increases — so too will the new and varied kinds of traps and enemies, leading the player to explore more mathematical concepts as time progresses. Of course educators can also build their own levels — using a planned level editor — to custom target the mathematical concepts that they desire their class to focus on, as well as kids seeking to challenge their friends.

The catch is that in order to keep expanding their current tech demo — as well as bring it to a variety of tablet based devices, which has been the most requested feature from parents everywhere — the Imaginary Number Co. had to ask Kickstarter for $42,000. Currently they have managed to secure $28,000 of their asking total — an entire two thirds of the required amount — which is certainly good progress so far, but the fact remains that there’s currently only nine days remaining on their fundraiser. Those interested in helping to expand fun ways to explore math can — before July 5th — secure their own launch copy of the Mathbreakers’ iOS release for $25, along with some other assorted extras. Naturally there also exists further rewards for those whom wish to donate beyond that, including: Mathbreakers T-Shirts, papercraft models of the game’s enemies, the chance to name upcoming enemies and bosses, dinner with the developers, and much more!