S.U.M.: Slay Uncool Monsters

Almost from the moment video games were invented, developers have been looking for ways to turn them into teaching tools. As a kid, I remember sharpening my teeth on games like Number Munchers, Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, and we've seen Big Brain Academy and Rocksmith target a whole new generation of learners in recent years. The newest stab at the edutainment genre is S.U.M.: Slay Uncool Monsters, a math game dressed up as a retro-themed role-playing game. We hack and slash tons of pixel monsters by adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying our way through dozens of challenging dungeons. And while it may not be the next Final Fantasy, let me tell you, this brand-new game from Doomster Entertainment beats the hell out of playing Donkey Kong Jr. Math.

The first thing you need to know about me is that math is not what I would call one of my strong suits. That's not to say that I can't add and subtract, I obviously have the basics down, but if we're in a situation where a bomb is about to go off and somebody needs to quickly bust through a bunch of math questions, then you need to look elsewhere. I'm the guy who is going to write the article about the explosion afterwards.

S.U.M.: Slay Uncool Monsters seems to be made with people like me in mind. This is an adventure game where our unnamed hero travels throughout the land taking on monsters and giant insects. What sets this game apart is that the traditional turn-based combat has been replaced with a series of math problems. We'll need to choose two numbers from a 4 x 5 grid that add up to 8 or 15 or whatever other number is displayed on the screen. If we get the answer right, we'll slay the monster and move deeper into the dungeon. But watch out, because we only have a few seconds to create the proper math equation before the enemy will attack our adventurer. Take too much damage and you'll get kicked out of the level and forced to rest in the nearest tavern.

One of the reasons why this approach works so well is because there is often more than one right answer. You can obviously add up to the number 12 in a number of different ways -- 6 + 6, 7 + 5, 8 + 4 and so on so forth. But what makes this tricky is that you don't always have the numbers you're looking for on the board. You may immediately think of 6 + 6, but then realize that you've used up all of the sixes. This means finding two different numbers, all while the monster is patiently waiting to strike. Between the time and tiles, coming up with simple math questions can be surprisingly stressful.

And that's just when you're dealing with addition problems. It won't take long for our adventurer to make his way into the wild world of subtraction, division and multiplication. Some dungeons will mix things up by throwing addition and division back-to-back, while others will ratchet up the difficulty by having you create math equations using three and four numbers at a time. By constantly making the dungeons longer and more challenging, the game ultimately forces the player to get better at memorizing answers and faster at punching them in.

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This is certainly fun and engaging, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was stuck taking a long and elaborate math test. I could see S.U.M. being a great teaching tool for school-age kids learning their times tables, however, as a role-playing game, the balance is all off. There aren't magic spells or items or the strategy elements that you normally associate with the genre, so all you end up doing is creating math equations. No matter how many numbers they add or how they shake up the questions, the real problem is that every dungeon ends up being exactly the same. There's no way to keep the combat fresh because the combat is barely an afterthought. As a result, the RPG trappings end up feeling like nothing more than wallpaper.

Beyond the repetition, I also have issues with the way the extra characters are unlocked. Although we're only able to select the generic adventurer at the start, the game promises us that we'll be able to play as the archer, healer and rogue by working through the single-player story. There's just one problem: The new characters join the adventure at experience level 1. Where my trusty adventurer had nearly 400 hit points, the archer had 15. This means that the player will need to play through the dungeons all over again just to pick up where the adventurer left off. And considering that it takes hours just to get to that point, I can imagine anybody wanting to grind levels for no reason. There's absolutely no incentive to choose these extra characters, and it's a real shame that the game doesn't let you cycle between them from the start.

Unfortunately, S.U.M. falls into the edutainment trap of wanting to educate at the expense of the gameplay. The potential is there for a fun, math-themed role-playing game full of magic spells, item shops and actual story elements, but Slay Uncool Monsters ignores all of that in favor of just giving you another math test. And, if I'm being honest, I don't want to take another math test.