Jul 4

Jul 4 The Counting Kingdom Review

Topic: Addition & Subtraction

Platform: PC (Steam)

Developer: Little Worlds Interactive

The Counting Kingdom is an educational math game developed by Little Worlds Interactive that released in 2014. The game is available on Steam and primarily features addition and subtraction. In 2014, it won the Original Family Game Award from the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR), a non-profit organization that “honors specialized roles and skill sets for video game art, technology, and production”. The game was also highlighted as one of the promising indie games showcased at PAX (an annual gaming culture festival) in 2014.

Math Content and Gameplay

The design of the Counting Kingdom is a tower defense type. The goal of tower defense games is to prevent the enemy from breaching your defenses. This is normally done through structures (i.e., towers) that attack the enemy as they advance upon your territory. In The Counting Kingdom, you prevent waves of monsters from breaching your castle by casting magic spells (sums) to clear them. The goal of each level is to clear all of the monsters before they reach the castle.

The beginning of a level in The Counting Kingdom (Little Worlds Interactive, 2014).

Each level begins with an initial wave of monsters on a 4x4 grid and a spellbook. Each monster has a number written on it. To cast a spell, the player needs to click on the monsters to select them, and then select the correct sum from the spellbook. For example, to cast a 5, the player needs to highlight a group of monsters whose sum is 5 (or a single monster with a 5 written on it). Casting a spell will cause a new wave of monsters to appear, pushing the existing row(s) of monsters up one row (see the gif above). Therefore, the player needs to be cautious of the order in which they clear the monsters. The player can only add monsters that are next to each other.

Difficulty and Additional Mechanics

The highest difficulty setting features large sums.

Aside from the difficulty settings (which features larger sums, monsters, and spells), there are added layers of complexity to The Counting Kingdom that make the game much more challenging and keep the gameplay fresh. These include:

Combining spells to create spells of larger sums
Trading spells for new ones
Potions with special effects
Tiles with special effects
Monsters with special effects

The game gives players 3 spells to choose from at any given time. However, what happens if none of the 3 spells (sums) you have are equal to any sums you can make from the monsters (or vice versa)? The player is given two options. You can combine spells (add them together) to create spells of larger sums, or you can trade spells for a new one from the spellbook (this will advance the monsters up one row). In the gif below the sum of the monsters is 11 (after using the +1 potion), but the only spells available are for the sums 5, 8, and 3. By combining the spells for 8 and 3, the spell for the sum of 11 becomes available to clear the monster wave.

Players can use potions, and combine or trade spells to help them proceed through each level.

There are several different kinds of potions that players will unlock as they proceed through the game. As shown above, by using the addition and subtraction potions, players can add or subtract 1 or 2 from each monster (so there is some subtraction involved in this game as well) to manipulate sums according to their needs. Additionally, in the later levels there are potions that can change monsters’ numbers to 0, or even freeze entire rows (see below). Potions add a layer of depth to the game, allowing for more strategic play.

If the potions weren’t enough, you’ll notice in the gif to the right there is a “x2” tile. Any monster that steps on that tile will double its number (so I guess there is a tiny bit of multiplication). Do you want to use a spell to get rid of that monster before it steps on the tile? Are you unconcerned about it because you have a spell that can clear it? In addition to having to make use of all of the mechanics, this is the kind of thinking that takes place at the higher levels of the game.

Feedback

As with any educational game (or classroom), feedback is vital to helping students learn from their mistakes and visualize their progress towards mastery. Players earn stars at the end of each level based on their total score, up to a total of 3 stars. There are a few ways to achieve a higher score. For example, clearing all of the monsters on the grid in one spell grants players a “full clear!”, which earns bonus points. Players will also receive 150 points for each part of the castle that remains untouched by monsters.

In terms of mathematical feedback, when players select a group of monsters (add) and choose a spell (a sum) that is incorrect, the game lets players know if their sum is too big or too small. In the video below, you’ll see the game’s feedback — that my sum is too large, and then too small. Then after 2 incorrect sums, the game shows me the sum of my selected monsters, and even highlights the correct spell for me. The developers attempted to include some kind of scaffold here for kids who were struggling with sums.

Summary

The Counting Kingdom is a colorful, fun, and challenging game based on addition (and to a smaller extent subtraction). The game features a variety of difficulty levels and several mechanics to make the gameplay challenging, fun, and strategic for all ability levels. While educators won’t find conceptual learning here regarding addition (i.e., decomposing numbers into different addends), I would argue that the mechanics still allow for some level of critical thought along with practicing addition facts. If you’re a teacher or parent looking to strengthen your child’s addition, this is a solid choice!