{"id":13551,"date":"2015-06-05T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T00:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=13551"},"modified":"2015-05-16T18:35:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T18:35:58","slug":"fruit-ninja-academy-math-masters-ipad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/05\/fruit-ninja-academy-math-masters-ipad\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruit Ninja Academy: Math Masters (iPad)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FRUIT_BOX\"<\/a>School may be out, but your kids can still practice their math skills with a new downloadable app featuring one of the most popular mobile games ever: Fruit Ninja!\u00a0 Apparently, Fruit Ninja has characters now, which I wasn\u2019t aware of.\u00a0 But at the beginning of the game, ninja kid Katsuro and his pet pig pal Truffles are exploring some ruins looking for treasure.\u00a0 When they stumble on a golden piece of fruit, Truffles accidentally triggers a trap and gets locked in a cage!\u00a0 The only way to free Truffles is to piece together six magical tablets.\u00a0 Now the Fruit Ninja crew needs your help slicing fruit on the touch screen and solving math problems so they can free Truffles!\u00a0 Fruit Ninja: Academy: Math Masters is available for download on iOS, Google Play, and Amazon, but reviewed on iPad here.<\/p>\n

In the game, you tap on a map to pick one of six challenges.\u00a0 In each one, you\u2019ll have to solve ten math problems to earn a piece of a tablet, and there are ten pieces in all for each one.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a list of the things you\u2019ll do in each category:<\/p>\n

Addition & Subtraction<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are two separate games, but they play very similarly.\u00a0 Bananas grow on trees and you must swipe at them so they land on a stone monkey paw.\u00a0 You have to place the correct number of bananas on the stone paw so it adds up to the correct number in the equation at the top of the screen.\u00a0 In later levels, it gets harder as you must swipe away at a monkey trying to disrupt your play, or you may have to swipe at unripe or bug-ridden bananas a few times.\u00a0 The addition and subtraction games are the weakest entries on here because it can be hard to swipe at the bananas so they land on the paw (especially when it moves around in some levels).\u00a0 You can swipe up on the paw to remove bananas if you have too many, but be careful not to swipe to the left or the monkey will eat the bananas and you might get the problem wrong.\u00a0 I found that I got answers wrong because of the controls, not because I didn\u2019t know the answers.<\/p>\n

Numbers & Sequences<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are also two different games, but they play just alike.\u00a0 In them, you must swipe at watermelons to roll them down a bridge into a stone dragon\u2019s mouth.\u00a0 Kind of like bowling.\u00a0 The watermelons have numbers on them, so you must roll the correct ones they ask for at the top of the screen.\u00a0 In Numbers, you\u2019ll have to roll watermelons that have numbers that are greater than or less than what is on the top of the screen.\u00a0 In Sequences, you\u2019ll have to roll numbers in order from largest to smallest or vice versa, or roll the right number in a sequence at the top of the screen.\u00a0 In later levels you must roll watermelons around pillars or swipe at a monkey blocking the way.<\/p>\n

Shapes<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this one, four pomegranates are on pedestals, and you must swipe at the correct one that has the same shape or fraction on the top screen.\u00a0 In later levels you might have to trace the shape as well.\u00a0 Watch out for that monkey again, he\u2019ll sometimes spin around the pedestals so you must rotate them back so you can see the pictures.\u00a0 Only problem with this game is the shape recognition stuff would be considered too easy compared to the rest of the game, which is set at a higher skill level.<\/p>\n

Multiples<\/strong><\/p>\n

And finally, in this one you swipe at crates one of the ninja kids is carrying to place them on a plate at the bottom of the screen.\u00a0 When the numbers on the crates count up to the correct answer of the multiplication problem at the top of the screen, tap on the \u2018play\u2019 button and the elephant statues will stomp and the crates will break to reveal fruit inside.\u00a0 Swipe on the fruit to turn it into juice for the elephants to drink.\u00a0 In later levels, you may have to swipe at bombs the monkey throws so it doesn\u2019t break your crates, or tap on the screen to chase away mice that are scaring the elephant statues.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t as clear on the instructions for this game, but it\u2019s pretty easy to figure out anyway.<\/p>\n

And those are all the games.\u00a0 For each answer you get right, you\u2019ll earn a starfruit.\u00a0 Get all ten correct and your piece of tablet that you earn will be gold!\u00a0 Use starfruit to unlock various goodies.\u00a0 You can unlock and buy different blade swipe animations by tapping on the sword rack.\u00a0 You can also unlock and buy virtual stickers and backgrounds you can place to make your own scenes and even take pictures of them (it kind of reminds me of the old Colorforms toys, if any of you remember those).\u00a0 Kids and parents can tap on the chalkboard to view their results and progress in each game with charts.\u00a0 On the results screen, you can also take a \u2018test\u2019 that plays like the original Fruit Ninja game.\u00a0 Swipe at as many fruit as you can to slice them, and then swipe at the fruit with the correct number answer to an equation as fast as you can to earn more points.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all there is to the game!\u00a0 There is no way to adjust the difficulty, but I\u2019d say it falls around the second grade math skill level.\u00a0 Maybe some first-graders would be fine, too.\u00a0 Even though the game has some problems, I think it\u2019s a good first try in the educational game department from Halfbrick (makers of Fruit Ninja).\u00a0 If they keep improving, they might end up being as good as other kid game makers like Humongous was.<\/p>\n

\"FRUIT_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your kids love Fruit Ninja, they\u2019ll definitely like this game, too, even though it has a few control problems in some of the games that might frustrate them.\u00a0 Even though the game has spoken voice for a lot of the instructions, reading skill and number recognition is still required for the equations.\u00a0 And there are no pop-up ads or in-game purchases, so it\u2019s definitely a child-safe app.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit of a stretch, but the game may also encourage healthy eating since it\u2019s all about fruit (it made me hungry for fruit after playing anyway).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

School may be out, but your kids can still practice their math skills with a new downloadable app featuring one of the most popular mobile games ever: Fruit Ninja!\u00a0 Apparently, Fruit Ninja has characters now, which I wasn\u2019t aware of.\u00a0 But at the beginning of the game, ninja kid Katsuro and his pet pig pal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13554,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551\/revisions\/13554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}