File this one under brain training games: Math Mountain is an addictive arithmetic game wherein you climb a mountain, competing against another person or the computer, by answering math questions correctly.
It's only BODMAS (without any brackets - Happy Bodmas!), so you don't have to worry about remembering high school algebra, and the questions vary from very easy (1 / 1 = ...) to fairly hard (123 - 75 = ...). You may be able to answer the questions easily, but you are being timed and you also have to choose the correct answer from a multiple choice, which, believe it or not, makes it harder. (A few times I've worked out the correct answer quickly, but the mouse slipped and I selected the number next to the one I wanted.) In the meantime, you're racing the CPU to the top of the mountain and collecting power-ups such as the ability to stop the opponent from moving or to remove all but two of the multiple choices. If you answer incorrectly or not at all, you'll slide backwards, proportionate to the difficulty of the question.
As you play through the levels, your side of the mountain will get longer and less steep, so that you have to answer more questions faster than the CPU. You'll have a larger number of multiple choices, making the chances of quickly clicking the wrong answer higher. However, if you do lose, you have a number of lives, so you can opt to "Continue" after the level has been lost. When you lose, you get to keep any power-ups you haven't used for the next life, so I suggest you save power-ups as much as you can—if you know you're going to lose badly, you may as well save that Stop power-up for the next life!
If you're not very good at arithmetic, Math Mountain is a fun way to practice; if you're already good, then why not give your brain some exercise? You can even turn on "Unlimited Mode" in the options by deselecting "timed" but that disqualifies you for achieving a high score. I haven't tried the multiplayer version, so if you give it a go, tell us about it in comments!
Well, if we're getting into arithmetic games, then it seems to be a fundamental (get it?) error in judgment to review this and not PrimeShooter, one of my favorite things on the internet. Seriously, check that out.
Oops! I forgot to include a link (although it's pretty Googleable).
http://www.1729.com/math/integers/PrimeShooter.html
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Thanks Hanoj, will take a look. :)
Mathematics is my favorite subject! :D The only thing about the game I cant do so well if trying to find the answer in a fast paced game. Its better for me to shout the answers and quicker than to look at the answer and click it.
secret_player
Oops again! I never saw that link before. Sorry! I guess I should actually talk about Math Mountain.
I guess I'd like it more if the higher difficulty setting actually meant harder questions. It's a bit annoying that even on "insane", you're still seeing questions like "5 - 1" several levels in. I sorta lost interest around level 4, so I never got to see whether it got any more complicated. Do the questions ever involve more than two terms?
Also, BODMAS, not PEMDAS? The B I can understand, but I never knew (until now) that Brits said "orders". I imagine that could get confusing.
PEMDAS? I see multiplication, division, addition and subtraction, but what are PE?
Also my Scottish school had it "of" rather than "orders".
As for the game itself, quite fun really. I loved stopping the computer just to be annoying. The pace is a little slow though, and trying not to hit the wrong button difficult.
Parentheses and Exponents.
The mnemonic I've heard is Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
Oh no! Arithmetic! I'm good at math (I'm a math major, actually) but I'm terrible at arithmetic. It's probably good for me to practice it sometimes and become less dependent on my calculator.
This game is pretty enjoyable, if a bit slow-paced. And I wish they would put the possible answers in, you know, numerical order. As it is, I spend half my time hunting around to find the answer I want.
Also, I wasn't aware that one could get a Nobel Prize for doing arithmetic. I'll have to go apply for one right now!
At my government school in Australia, it was:
Brackets Of Division, Multiplication, Addition [and] Subtraction.
And I like the fact that it sounds like a Christian holiday (Christmas, Michaelmas, Bodmas).
Although I'm hopeless at both arithmetic and math proper, I can understand Hanoj's disappointment at how basic the problems are - I was thinking about it as I wrote the review. (The equivalent for me, a Politics major with a BA, would be doing the same game with spelling of everyday words. Come on, where's "floccinaucinihilipilification"?!)
However, if the math was more advanced and we factored in fishy's desire for the answers to be in numerical order, it would be a completely different game. (If the answers were in order the way it is now, it would be too easy even for me.) I guess you could always write your own game, hint hint...
IQ seems awfully arbitrary. Just getting a level 1 question is enough to drop a high score down 5 or 6 points. As the only means of score it seems a bit lacking - maybe add bonus points for unused powerups?
Well, I'd like to play - only the game crashes on me every time I try.
Firefox 2.0.0.5, Win XP (with the newest updates).
Hey, thats a great idea to have games with math...it will surely improve pupil interest towards math...
Cheers,
Suma valluru
its great, but i realised that sometimes even after progressing a level your iq drops. is that a bug, or what?
BOMDAS?
PEMDAS?
It all goes to show how many different people speaking so many different languages and from varying parts of the world visit this site. Where does exponenets come in in BOMDAS though? "of"?
Yep, arithmatic - I still can't get 8*8=? out the top of my head. For some reason, I have an problem with 8, 7, and 6 multiplied with eachother. Yet I love logic puzzles. :D Just not arithmatic. Grr! Oh, and maybe your IQ drops because it may have taken you too long a time to get the answer?
i like math games, i had some fun playing this one. but i do have some crits, i think that if you miss the easy questions you should go back three steps, and if you miss hard questions you should go back one step. there should be a restart button too. it happened more than once that i miss a couple of hard questions and the level became useless to compete.
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