Most gaming involves a pretty heavy amount of math; the key has always been to avoid making players feel they are doing homework. Decision trees, geometry, probability, and the ubiquitous "victory point arithmetic" are all over the place in gaming. Possibly due to common misconceptions about mathematics stemming from education systems, many only perceive the presence of mathematics when tedious arithmetic is involved.
Further, I am sorely disappointed at how reductionist this offering by Genius Games is. So many of their other games put significant effort into trying to bring interest and education into a proper game while this not only seems to fail to do the same fairness by mathematics for the reasons mentioned in the write-up, but also for one critical reason: the field of mathematics is not about obnoxious mental arithmetic "party tricks". Nobody gets a PhD in mathematics because they yearn to do long division in their heads while someone holds a stopwatch. I have no idea why so many people think that is the appeal of mathematics as a pursuit or career.
If you want a better idea of a game of mathematics that draws out the joy of mathematics without hiding behind a theme (e.g.: ALL polyomino games are mathematics games), I would recommend finding the hidden gem Reidemeister. It still feels a little too "educational" to be anyone's new favorite, but it puts a fun twist on a very real mathematical area of study.
Most gaming involves a pretty heavy amount of math; the key has always been to avoid making players feel they are doing homework. Decision trees, geometry, probability, and the ubiquitous "victory point arithmetic" are all over the place in gaming. Possibly due to common misconceptions about mathematics stemming from education systems, many only perceive the presence of mathematics when tedious arithmetic is involved.
Further, I am sorely disappointed at how reductionist this offering by Genius Games is. So many of their other games put significant effort into trying to bring interest and education into a proper game while this not only seems to fail to do the same fairness by mathematics for the reasons mentioned in the write-up, but also for one critical reason: the field of mathematics is not about obnoxious mental arithmetic "party tricks". Nobody gets a PhD in mathematics because they yearn to do long division in their heads while someone holds a stopwatch. I have no idea why so many people think that is the appeal of mathematics as a pursuit or career.
If you want a better idea of a game of mathematics that draws out the joy of mathematics without hiding behind a theme (e.g.: ALL polyomino games are mathematics games), I would recommend finding the hidden gem Reidemeister. It still feels a little too "educational" to be anyone's new favorite, but it puts a fun twist on a very real mathematical area of study.