This column is sponsored by Nokia Asha
Today’s App Fridays brings back many childhood memories. I was about 10 when the first computer came to my home. And my father was instantly at war with the avid gamer in me. In due course, he lost. Miserably! He tried everything in his power to make me stop playing games. My mother, on the other hand, did something that worked.
Gamification isn’t new. It always existed and it’s best possible manifestation in technology was through educational games. Adventure games which required you to pass grammar or arithmetic tests to pass a challenge kept me hooked. I was enjoying while I was learning.
These games are slowly beginning to trickle into the smartphone space and today’s App Friday, Panda Math, is a educational game that teaches you math. After hours of time wasting and honing my basic arithmetic skills, here’s what we think about the app -
What is it about?
It is a math game where a player is a assisted by a panda who poses different types of math questions. There are many kinds of questions ranging from simple arithmetic questions to more complex fill in the sequence or arrange in the right order sort of questions. As the the game 
progresses, the difficulty of the questions also increases.
When you don’t want to play a math game, Math Panda gives you the classic memory game to play, where you have images behind tile which have matching pairs under other randomly selected tiles.
Games on smartphones – less is more
Right answers can be touched
I think the touch screen as a point of interaction lends itself to gaming in a very unique way. More complex games where interactions require a combination of many keys have failed on mobile devices because of the lack of sufficient surface area. Some games still try to do this by gestures. While it has worked in some games, the large majority of successful games on smartphones require simple and few interactions.
This is why I feel educational games will work a lot better on smartphone. While there are no breakout successes in these kind of games yet, the touchscreen provides that extra dimension of user interaction – touch, along with look and hear. Research suggests that touch screens are more intuitive for children and good content on the game can make educational games a lot more engaging than they were during their computer era.
Panda Math’s math games thoroughly uses this and makes for a very engaging game play. There is enough variety in the questions and children whom we got to use it, didn’t get bored easily. (only downside being they didn’t give us back the phone!)
Panda math games really leverage the touch screen
Pros and cons
The gameplay and content is this game’s biggest plus point. These are the key ingredients to both games as well as educational tools. Math Panda has got them both and if you have a primary school kid in your home, you should definitely allow them to try it out.
Its few flaws lie in the technology side. For example, the game should be able to override the screen timeout settings. If you’ve set a quick screen time out, like I had, the phone would go to sleep whilst the game is playing. Apart from this, there were instances where the game’s music continued to play despite exiting it using the home button.
However, these are minor flaws. Panda Math has got most components of the game right. It would be interesting if the game launched a tablet only version of the app for all platforms, and work on cooler features which would leverage the extra screen space.
Our Take
If you have a toddler in the house, this game would really help. There are so many different kinds of games for the same concept which really reinforces the concept in a child’s mind. Only 
downside is seeing a panda in an arctic setting alongside whales and dolphins! (Might be something the redbyte labs team might want to look into!)
I hope the game makers build the game for more subjects. As for now, Panda Math is a great suppliment for your child’s basic math needs. Go download it today.
Pandamath for Android
Pandamath on Facebook