PrinceWatercress plays Basic Math/Fun With Numbers - Part 1 of 2

It's time to have fun with numbers with basic math...I guess.

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Basic Math, released in 1977 as one of the launch games for the Atari VCS (later the Atari 2600) and re-released in 1980 under the name Fun With Numbers, was one of the first edutainment games, if not the first, for home consoles from back then.

Game Modes 1-4 are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, respectively. In the first four game modes, you can pick a number between 0-9 to work with, and then you can start solving math problems. Game Modes 5-8 are the same as Game Modes 1-4, although the problems are much more random and you have no control over the numbers.

The right difficulty switch turns the time limit to answer math questions on and off. A/Expert turns on the time limit to answer questions, while B/Novice turns it off. With the Left Difficulty Switch, you can set the timer to 12 seconds with A/Expert and 24 seconds with B/Novice; just remember to see the right switch to A/Expert to turn on the timer. In Game Modes 5-8, setting the left switch to A/Expert allows for questions where one or both numbers are two digits. Thankfully, setting the right switch to B/Novice allows you to do this without turning on time limits. Thankfully, you can tell if the time limit is on if you can hear beeps that sound like a metronome or a ticking clock.

To answer questions, press Left and Right on the joystick to move the cursor, and Up and Down to cycle through the numbers zero through nine. When you have the correct answer, press the fire button. You'll get a jingle if you get it right, and you'll get the correct answer if you get it wrong. 

For division problems, you'll need to move the cursor two spaces from the right to the ones place to put down the remainder, in case you have one. 

You'll have ten questions to answer before the game is over, and when you answer all ten questions, you'll get two numbers flashing on the screen. The first one shows how many you got right out of ten, and if both numbers are ten, congratulations! You got them all correct!

As you can tell through the gameplay, what you see is what you get, and the presentation is very minimal. There are different color pairings for all eight of the different game modes, and some of them are a little harder on the eyes than others (looking at you, Game Modes 2 and 8). There would be more fun and engaging math games on the console - and in gaming - later on, but, hey. We had to start somewhere.