1983 · Educational · Platformer

Math Blaster!

Math Blaster! is the orignal game in the Math Blaster Series. It challenges players to solve math problems through first person and sidescrolling shooting games.

Released: 1983
Platforms: Apple II Atari 8-bit Commodore 64 Commodore C64/128/MAX MS-DOS macOS
Genres: Educational Platformer
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Science fiction Educational
Country: United States

About

Math Blaster! is a 1983 educational video game, and the first entry in the "Math Blaster" series within the Blaster Learning System created by Davidson & Associates. The game was developed by former educator Jan Davidson. It would be revised and ported to newer hardware and operating systems, with enhanced versions rebranded as Math Blaster Plus!

(1987), followed by New Math Blaster Plus! (1990). A full redesign was done in 1993 as Math Blaster Episode I: In Search of Spot and again in 1996 as Mega Math Blaster.

Keywords

math
edutainment
kid friendly

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

An arcade-style educational game that offers skill-building mathematical exercises, the title contains minigames that test players' knowledge in subjects such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentages, and decimals. A series of mathematics problems appear on the screen, and the player must move to fire the cannon pointing at the correct answer. The game included an editor for teachers and parents to design their own problems.

While this title was purely a drill and practice, its 1987 sequel would wrap the activity around a narrative.

Reception

After it was developed, Math Blaster! was extensively tested in classrooms. By November 2, 1985, the game had sustained 92 weeks on the Billboard charts for Top Education Computing Software, and was placed at #2. The game, plus its various sequels and spin-offs, has since become the best-selling piece of math software in history.

InfoWorld praised the game for its high resolution graphics, and considered it a standout title in the drill-and-practice edutainment video game genre, and deemed it a perfect teacher's aid for primary school classroom use.