I was disturbed when playing “Batman Multiply, Divide and Conquer”. The experience doesn’t make sense. I’m not saying it’s a bad game, some of the side scrolling parts where you control batman are fun, but then you get to a point where you have to solve a math problem to move on. Even when there is some attempt to integrate it into the game, the attempt seems tacked-on. For example, batman has to solve a math problem to open a door. Being a batman nerd, I was somewhat insulted. “I’m the goddamn batman”, why would I need to solve this math problem to open a door?

The reason that this educational game will sell is because it’s asking players to assume the role of batman. This makes simple math problems that batman has to solve stick out like a sore thumb because it doesn’t make sense from batman’s perspective. If batman had to solve a math problem in any other medium (film, television, comics) it would be a joke because we’re assuming Bruce Wayne passed elementary math. This challenge doesn’t make any sense from the enemy’s perspective either. What super villain would lock their doors with simple math problems and not expect them to be opened?

Even the reviews of “Batman Multiply, Divide and Conquer” point out the divide between game-play and content. The reviewer specifically states, “he has to do the math to move on, whether he likes it or not”. In other words, it’s not only disjointed, but actually detracts from the game and is seen as an obstacle to get to the game. It would be like playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops and having to solve a math problem every 3 minutes. In fact, that method might be just as effective.

So, if you have a content goal, how do you tie it back into the game in a way that makes sense, and doesn’t seem disjointed? Make it a necessary in a way that adds to the experience. I’ll offer the example of Bioshock’s hacking system. The experience that one gets from hacking in Bioshock is: hacking is time sensitive, approached as a puzzle, and sometimes doesn’t work. This experience works perfectly with the tone of Bioshock which is also time sensitive and dangerous. In this mini-game the idea is to connect puzzle solving with hacking, something makes sense to those who code. However, If they actually wanted to teach coding, it would have looked quite different.

Going back to the Batman example, lets use math in a way that would make sense for the dark knight. Batman is a detective, and as such solves problems. Rather than a math problem, why not introduce a problem that uses math? For example, make the problem be a cipher. If addition is what you want you can make it easy. The code could be unscrambled by simply adding a constant to the original letter, and having to subtract by the same amount to decode it. It’s still a simple concept, but it makes more sense in the context of the game and becomes a part of the experience. If only more edu-games would bother mixing the content with the experience…