Can a video game make your kid smarter? Can a video game teach your kid math? Jean-Baptiste Huynh’s Dragonbox app “tricks” kids into thinking algebra is fun. Or maybe algebra is fun and Dragonbox is an app that teaches adults how algebra can be more than just an abstract intellectual torture device employed by junior high math teachers. Step aside soduko, algebra is the primordial puzzle game.
Dragonbox is a multiplatform game that uses drag and drop mechanics to teach the basics of algebra. It is available in Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac editions. And soon, there will be a web version available. It is inexpensive (or dirt cheap when compared with a math tutor). But does it work? Is it fun? Will it make your kid smarter?
Let me start with a confession. About 20 years ago, I almost failed algebra. In fact, I probably did fail algebra, but I talked my way into a C-. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t understand it, problem solving was easy for me. Instead, I was bored. I was irritated by the idea that someone was testing me. And I never showed my work.
However, I was not one of those kids who doubted that algebra applied to my life. It made sense to me. I saw, even then, that I used it all the time. Give me an equation and I was lost. Give me a real life problem and I could easily isolate variables.
The word “algebra” comes from the Arabic al-jabr. According to the OED, it literally has to do with restoration “of anything that is missing, out of place, lost.” What’s missing, of course, is represented by “X.” But it could just as easily be represented by any variable: a letter, hieroglyphs, or a cute little picture of a “dragonbox.”
In the game Dragonbox, everything begins as a picture. There are fireflies, aliens, monsters, dice, etc. As you level up, each one of these little icons slowly becomes a mathematical variable–letters and numbers. Tricky, yes, but this is not what makes the app so impressive.
Dragonbox is impressive because, without relying on text, it teaches the rules of algebra step-by-step as if the player is really only learning the laws of the universe particular to the game. This slowly and steady way of training players is familiar. It is one of elements that makes other touch screen games, like “Angry Birds,” “Cut the Rope,” “Where’s My Water?” and “Plants vs. Zombies,” so addictive. Each of these games teach players only what they need to know to execute the immediate task at hand. Then, the game stacks one operation atop the next. This system of teaching the necessary skills for the game has enabled my seven year old to plant pea shooters and sunflowers much faster than zombies can move toward his house. Noticing that Dragonbox worked in a similar way, I figured I’d see if he liked it.
He did. I handed him my tablet and he was immediately won over by avatars that were simultaneously sweet and a little twisted. Like any good cartoon these days, Dragonbox’s images celebrate the intersection between teddy-bear cute and disenfranchised freaky. My son watches “Phineas & Ferb” and “Adventure Time;” he is magnetically drawn to this combination of sentimental and sarcastic. Take your kids to a Chinese restaurant and it’ll prove what animators and game designers already know: kids love “sweet and sour.” My son jumped right into the game. About an hour and a half later he was solving junior high level algebraic equations. Amazing.
The next morning, when we arrived at school, I marched him right past his 3rd grade classroom to the junior high. I told him to show the teacher what he could do. He dragged variables around my nexus 7’s screen. He tapped numbers to make them negative and added them to both sides of the equation. A junior high student walked in and looked over his shoulder. Obviously nervous about the algebra quiz she’d be taking later that day, she looked at me and pointed down at my son, “wait, does he know what he’s doing?”
When I decided to review Dragonbox, I wanted to hate it. Most attempts at educational gaming I’ve seen take a pretty mundane approach. They are basically glorified quizzes with bells and whistles. They add the digital equivalent of smiley face stickers and gold stars: sound effects, animations, points. Ultimately, gamification in educational apps often means a more colorful transactional reward system is placed on top of a common pedagogical structure. Not only are these games boring, they also seem to ignore the plethora of studies that have shown that over reliance on extrinsic motivations in learning can have negative long-term effects.
Dragonbox is different. Jean-Baptiste Huynh didn’t gamify algebra. Instead, he found algebra’s intrinsic game and brought it to life. It is fun, but that’s not surprising. Consistent, logical, and believable rules are what make it possible for us to immerse ourselves in the world of any game. Algebra’s rules have clearly stood the test of time. Dragonbox intuitively employs algebra using an interface that just makes sense.
Download Dragonbox and you’ll find yourself sitting next to your kid, coaching him through the game. I still remember my dad trying to help me with math homework, it often ended in frustration and tears. Dragonbox isn’t like that. It doesn’t just make learning fun, it shows us what philosophers and mathematicians have known for millennia: algebra is fun.
Jordan Shapiro is author of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Maximum Euphoric Bliss and co-editor of Occupy Psyche: Jungian and Archetypal Perspectives on a Movement. For information on his upcoming books and events click here.