Teach your children or accept a challenge with this multi-level
maths program
Since I have never been too impressed with the few
mathematical games for children that I had seen for the Atari I had
been planning such a game for some time but it was not until the
recent birthday of the eight year old daughter of one of my friends
that I made up my mind how to develop what I felt to be the right
combination of learning mathematics and having a little gaming fun.
MOST-HEART MATHEMATICS is the result of my efforts. I cannot judge
myself whether I have programmed something that meets the demand
expressed above, however, the children that have played it so far
were quite pleased with it and went on playing it again and again.
You might be intrigued by the title of the program and I don't blame
you! This is because the title and all the prompts of the game were
originally written in German and nothing else came to my mind as an
English version of the title than 'Most-heart mathematics', because
I wanted to save time and the title had to fit into the space
provided for the German version. I don't even know whether the title
is English or whether it is nonsense!
Anyway, type it in and play it and you will find out
that it has quite a lot to do with mathematics and even more to do
with hearts which, because it is written for children, play a very
important role.
WHAT DOES THE PROGRAM DO?
Firstly, you have the choice between addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division. Secondly, you are asked
to decide at which level – ranging from easy to extra in three
variations – that you would like to your children's arithmetic
skills to be improved.
According to your choices you are presented with three sets of six
arithmetical problems. The answers are typed in on the keyboard but
will not appear on screen until RETURN is pressed. It is important
here to watch the keyboard carefully to make sure you have typed the
answer you intended. When all six answers have been entered they are
checked and wrong or right answers are marked accordingly. For every
right answer, the ATARI displays – what else? – a nice heart. Wrong
answers are indicated differently. If there are any incorrect
results you are asked whether you would like to see the correct
answers before proceeding.
Once all eighteen problems have been solved your total score is
displayed. If you have reached a certain percentage of the total
score possible, you have the choice between either going back to the
next set of arithmetical problems or playing a little reward game
instead.
That's all there is to it. The program was originally written
without the time having an influence upon the scoring but I found
that this feature makes the program interesting even for adults who
mainly over-estimate their arithmetical skills. Every body is so
used to using their 'Texas-Instruments ' when calculating 4 x 10 and
assumes that the answer really is 39.99999!
Try Most Heart Mathematics yourself and play some rounds against an
adult or even against your children and very soon you will be under
time pressure and will make mistakes typing in the results that will
reduce your scores considerably. The best choice for adults to start
with is DIVISION at level 3:EXTRA. Have fun!
In conclusion I should point out that as the program was written for
children there are many sounds in it that may not attract adults. I
am sure that you will easily find out which GOSUB's you have to omit
in order not to be disturbed by foolish sounds when solving some of
the easy or the 'hearty' arithmetical problems.
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