DragonBox Algebra 5+ App Reviews

Holy Cow I loved this game it made Algebra so easy 1 to 2 hours I Finished I started my Ten year old and my EIght year old on it and they are catching on fast.

Most educational video games ---especially most math education games ---take routine classroom exercises and tack on some totally extraneous eye candy, sound-effects, and/or "blast-the-aliens" action to make the exercises fun and exciting. First of all, this rarely works (most kids instinctively recognize bitter medicine in a sugar-coated pill; they arent fooled for very long). Second, the interactive video game component contributes nothing to the educational experience; it is just there as a "hook". This game is different. It uses a simple "card-matching game" to teach basic algebraic manipulation techniques. The brilliance is that at first, it doesnt even look like you are doing algebra. The "cards" have pictures of funny grotesque little alien monsters. The game very gently eases the player into more and more complex card-matching puzzles (at every step, the rules are carefully explained in an interactve tutorial with simple language). Then at some point, some of the funny little monsters on the cards start to look more like numbers or letters. Then, somewhat later, the "dragon box" to which the player has been "feeding" the matched cards gets replaced with the symbol "x". Then finally, the partition of the playing screen into two halves gets replaced with an "=" sign. At this point, the player realizes that all this time, when playing the card-matching game, she has actually been "solving for x". She has just learned basic algebra ---without even knowing it. The brilliance is the recognition that basic algebra IS just a game where you manipulate tokens to create certain patterns (i.e. to isolate the unknown variable on one side of the equation). If these tokens are called "x", "y", "z", "2", "3", and "5", then people are afflicted with math anxiety and algebra seems really hard. But if the tokens are pictures of funny little monsters, then suddenly its just a simple puzzle game, which even a child can play. Aesthetically, the game design hits the bulls eye. The artwork is in a whimsical cartoon style, with monstrous creatures which are simultaneously grotesque and ridiculous, and which kids will find very funny and appealing. It is deliberately gender-neutral; there is no pinky frou-frou princess stuff or hard-hitting macho man stuff which panders to one gender stereotype while repulsing the other one. The game is designed to encourage relaxed contemplation; there are no time limits, the music is cheerful but soothing, and the player is rewarded with pleasant but not explosive visual effects when she makes progress in the game. If I was a prize committee, this game would win "Best math game ever."

I teach six classes each day and homebound students on evenings and weekends. My day job is history teaching but homebound teaching requires me to teach all subjects. I was looking for a way to teach algebra and I came across thsi program. Through playing a game students use the same logic as they would solving an equation but without the scary-looking math symbols. I woudl recommend this for math-phobic students.

I have a 5 year old who loves puzzles and loves games. Thought Id Dragon Box a try, without any expectation that hed either a) like it, or b) learn anything. Its been amazing to watch -- he loves the game, he has no idea hes following any rules re: simplification of equations. Well see (years from now, sadly) how well it translates -- unless I decide to start introducing algebra-as-algebra earlier -- but hes having a blast. Really well thought out, great progression of concepts.

Many of the games that I buy for my son to play on the Mac and iPad are math games, not because I want to push him into learning math early or at an accelerated pace, but simply because I want him to enjoy it and for it to be part of his daily life. Ive bought a number of fun counting and pre-school math games for him and he enjoys them, and Im always looking for new math games. Unfortunately, after you try a few, most are slight variations on the same concept. When I saw Dragon Box in the App store, it looked different, but I was sceptical of preschool/kindergarten aged kids being able to enjoy it or get anything out of it. I cant believe how wrong I was. This game is incredible. It is basically a logic puzzle based on algebra disguised as a card game that progresses through a series of levels organized in a way that would be familiar to anyone who has played Angry Birds, Wheres My Water, or other games where you have to solve one level before unlocking the next. A fun addition to going through the levels is that each chapter has a different creature that grows a little after you complete each level. Just getting the creature fully grown and moving to a new creature is a big motivation for my son to want to keep moving through the levels. The game is very intuitive, but some adult supervision will be required for very little children. For example, for opposites, they start with a "night" version for every card that can cancle out its "day" version. When they jump from night day pictures to "a" and "-a", I had to explain to my son that the minus symbol serves the same purpose as the "night version of a picture card. Overall, I think that this is a brilliant game and a wonderful way to hang out and play on the iPad with your young kids while building their foundations for algebra. As someone who struggled with math and didnt appreciate it until later in life, I wish that there were games like this and the devices to play them when I was a kid. It is an absolute joy to see my son loving a game that is teaching him math rather than just wasting time.

I tried this game with four kids, ages 6, 8, 10 and 12. All really love these kinds of games - Minecraft, Zuma, Angry Birds. None wanted to play DragonBox for more than about 20 minutes. I played it most of the way through just to see what the higher levels looked like. I think its really a stretch to claim that it teaches algebra. It does not - its simply a game of cancelling out things where they can to isolate one object. Thats just one small aspect of algebra, and its already taught in first grade math. And thats about as far as the game goes - just cancelling things out. The levels all seem to be the same. Unlike Angry Birds, there is no replay value - you dont come back later to replay it and say "yeah I remember that level, it was fun." DragonBox levels are pretty much the same thing over and over again. Letters eventually start replacing monster pictures to back up the "theyre learning algebra" claim. Beyond the fundamental concept issue, the game is very unpolished. The music is painfully monotonous, and the graphics are uninspiring. Whats really bad, however, is that the graphics are bitmaps and do not stretch properly. Unless you want to run the game in a window (not a good idea for small kids since they will click outside and hide the game window), you will need to go to fullscreen (cmd-F). Angry Birds does this beautifully, even on 27" monitors, due to the use of vector graphics. DragonBox doesnt. It stretches out the graphics so that the objects which should be squares are now flattened rectangles with heavy pixellation. Overall, it would be very impressive work if it was developed as a high school project, perhaps in Scratch (the language from MIT). Not so impressive coming from an alleged professional programming asking for money.

My math junky third grade son just completed this App in 3 days at about 30 mintues each. My 5th and 6th graders are working on it too. One hates math because he struggle with it but can easily navigate his way through this app. Its fun, engaging, and educational. At first I did not fully grasp what it had to do with algebra until I paid a little more attention. Once I figured out the concept I was in awe of this method of teaching algebra. We have about 50 other educational apps that are typical. This is what apps should bring to education-innovation. If you have a child who is struggling with the basic concept of algebra this may just be the breakthrough app. There are no words so if you are looking for math without reading this would work, ie-Dyslexic. If the developers sold any other math app, I would buy it. I hope that they come out with a second app with real numbers and problems. First time writing a review because I have never been this impressed. update- missed the bonus round, it has the numbers that I wanted.

This is really a great game! It does not seem like you are doing math at all, just solving puzzles! It really teaches algebra concepts. I am telling everyone about it!

My seven year old son just finished this game a few minutes ago. He learned a lot about algebra without even seeing it as a "math game." It taught things one step at a time. I am about to go buy the next level of Dragon Box and he is very excited!

MAKE SURE YOU ARE GETTING THE RIGHT VERSION! This isnt exactly the apps fault, but I got the 12 level iphone app, and was so excited there was a mac version, because my kids wont give the iphone back, and Im finally learning algebra after three decades. I bought this version and when I installed it, realized its a mini-version, and theres no 12 level one to get. I didnt realize there were two versions, or that the mac store wouldnt have both. So I guess Ive donated to a good cause.