PHD Games is promising to put the “game” back into brain games with their first iPhone game release, EDU Blaster. Players of Edu Baster are presented with a math equation and must solve for X by shooting down all numbers whose value would complete the equation correctly. Numbers are shot down by tapping them on your iPhone or iPod Touch screen. If you tap an incorrect number or let too many correct numbers leave the screen your life bar will be depleted eventually ending your game. There are 8 levels of difficulty in Edu Blaster all of which display math problems. Easier levels involve simple “less than” and “greater than” problems while harder levels challenge players to solve for X before comparing it to the numbers on screen. Although, Edu Blaster is available free of charge from the iTunes App Store, PHD Games uses a splash screen for advertising their upcoming games.

Edu Baster is somewhat fun, for an educational game. It has several nice features such as music, mystery numbers and color changing numbers. Tapping a mystery number causes a group of numbers to appear while tapping a color changing number causes nearby numbers to explode. While I thought there could be improvements to the way equation changing happens, the current method of blinking the equation before it changes works fairly well. The difficulty of the the levels progresses reasonably and the game has supporting options to control starting level, level repeat and sound.

Edu Blaster looks and feels a lot like the spelling and math games I grew up on 20 or so years ago. The graphics are pretty dated, the worst offenders being options and game over screens. There are also a few problems with the gameplay in EDU Blaster. First, the game’s fun and replay value are limited by it’s design. Edu Blaster relies on tapping lots of numbers which means every equation must be a “less than” and “greater than” type problem. Secondly, tapping the numbers doesn’t really feel like your “shooting” them down. I think a much better approach would have been to create a targeting reticle controlled by the accelerometer. Instead of mass tapping a bunch of numbers (which has its own problems), players could tilt and turn their iPhone to actually target and shoot down the correct number out of much less dense group of possible answers. This would be a lot more interactive while allowing for more problem types. Lastly, the tapping of numbers is not precise enough. Many times my game ended because I tapped a correct answer that happened to be too close to an incorrect answer.

Besides the game play problems, there are a few graphical bugs with the game. Several times loading EDU Blaster led to a weird flashing between the splash ads and the main menu screen. I also think the game would be better named something like Number Blaster or Math Blaster. To me, the term “Edu” refers to a game that offers more than just math problems.

Edu Blaster is a pretty fair learning game which tries hard to put the “game” back into brain games. Unfortunately, I think the limited game play, dated graphics and control scheme prevent it from fully delivering on this promise. Edu Blaster is free, so, give it a download and see what your kids think.

By: Aaron Robbins