The Flashcard Hater’s Answer to Math Facts!

Update: there’s a video on YouTube showing it now!

MultiAlien — The red button that has the answer to the alien shoots the kill bullets. The other buttons send bullets that give the alien more power!

Do you hate flashcards? Do you have an iPhone or iPad?

Well, have I got an app for you!

I’ve tried a bunch of math apps and until now have been unimpressed. The others seem to be contrived. Annoyingly so.

I grew up on Stella – codename for the Atari 2600. I had friends with Coleco systems and Commodore 64’s. For my 10th birthday I had a Atari 2600 PacMan tournament at my house!

So I’m no stranger to gaming.

MultiAlien works because it’s real gaming!

You really are killing the alien ships. You really are picking up shields, extra lives and machine gun add-ons.

There’s the real gaming stress of “Holy crap, I’m not going to shoot it in time!”

Here’s how it works:

Each alien ship has an arithmetic problem attached to it. Either addition or multiplication – you choose before you begin the game.

When the ship launches to come get you, you’re given three red buttons with numbers on them. The button with the answer to the alien problem will kill it. The other two will make the alien ship stronger!

It works because it opens up other channels in the brain.

Learning is enforced when there is another emotion going on at the same time. This eu-stress (as opposed to disstress) of gaming opens up brain passages that allow these math facts to take a better hold in the brain.*

MultiAlien offers excitement and fun at the same time as addition and multiplication enforcement.

You might also catch your kiddos (or yourself) breaking out a pack of flashcards to remember the facts before each round of killing MultiAliens. (I did.)

MultiAlien is almost perfect.

AddAlien from MultiAlien — The addition version.

This app was built by Greg Herlein, dad of his two alpha testers for the game. They’ve created a great product already. The only improvement I’m looking forward to is a game resume.

I’m rockin’ along killin’ the badguys and the phone rings. Oops – must start over. Would be great to pick up where I left off.

Give it a shot – for FREE!

Now through Tuesday, August 16, 2011, Greg Herlein (father of two) has made his new, amazingly awesome, math facts app MultiAlien available for free! Download, play and come back and share your thoughts in the comments. I’ll see about getting Greg in here to answer your questions!

* I don’t know the fancy medical or psychological terms to this, sorry. This is the lay-person version of what’s happening.

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One Response to The Flashcard Hater’s Answer to Math Facts!

Greg Herlein says:

August 15, 2011 at 9:35 am

The resume feature will be in the next version, out in a week or so. It will have a few more features too: the ability to set the difficulty level, better fonts, and a help screen reachable during the game.

If there’s anything else you think the game needs, please comment here!