Overview
The gamification of curriculum is something that’s been going on for years. As a student, I remember games like All The Right Type and Math Blasters. Both games I remember fondly. It felt like a cheat code to play something interactive and learn typing or math problem-solving. Today we will be exploring the site Prodigy. This site is based on either a math or English curriculum and is an interactive game where the user can play as an avatar of a student as they complete quests, level up, and brush up on their math or English skills. As I signed into the app, I was prompted to create an Avatar. This process was simple, and the story was explained as I played through a tutorial. Five gems have been scattered worldwide, and your job as the player is to collect them by battling monsters.
What I like
The game is fun. It is pretty addicting to travel around and level up as you do math. I find myself constantly looking for the next piece of gear I can afford to push the limits of the encounters my character can handle. I also appreciate the battle system. It is nostalgic and reminds me of early RPGs I used to play, like Pokémon, Neo Pets, or Chrono Trigger, albeit a little less in-depth. There is a massive variety of different pets to catch, and they all have different types based on the elements, and all these types are either weak or strong against one another. For example, ice-themed pets do bonus damage to ground and grass types, and electric pets damage water. The game also scales the math questions based on your comprehension of the material and the area you are in. In the first grass area, I encountered questions on angles, probability and mode, median, mean, and range. Prodigy also has a social aspect. You can link with friends and battle your pets or co-optatively complete quests on the same server. Overall, the game was a fun experience, and I did have to brush up on some of my math skills to keep the magic flowing.
What I didn’t like
Prodigy is geared towards children, and although the quests are interesting, operating the UI and engaging with the story requires a fair amount of reading comprehension. The tutorial in the game is relatively short, and the Menu bar at the bottom of the screen has fourteen icons with little to no explanation. The site could better scaffold the players’ understanding of what all these functions do. For the most part, I have just resorted to clicking all the glowing buttons. So far, so good. However, this process for a student struggling with math could be overwhelming. The game is also very linear; there are many areas to explore, but I have found that if I wander too far off my quest objective, the enemies scale up too quickly to be able to defeat. If a younger player needed help understanding the battles’ rock, paper, scissors mechanics or how to equip gear, they would easily be outmatched by enemies off the beaten path. Finally, my biggest problem with the game is the microtransactions. Microtransactions are the bane of any gamer’s existence. This is the idea that you can pay money for more in-game currency, rewards, gear, pets, and pretty much everything in the game. You can do it faster and better if you spend real money. I don’t have a problem with games with premium features. It’s how often I’m prompted to pay which is the problem. Nearly every two or three screens, I am shown how much content I miss out on because I need a premium subscription. It’s nonstop. It would be almost impossible to play this for a long time without a subscription and not become frustrated. Nearly all pets require energy to capture, and how do you get more energy? You guessed it, cold, hard cash. Gaming used to be a place where time and expertise meant one player could be the best. Now, you can buy your way to the top with a simple credit card transaction. That being said, a subscription to Prodigy is only 15 dollars a month, so if a child or student was invested in the game, it seems like a reasonable trade-off to have them passively playing math games all day. Prodigy, in my opinion, scores 8/10 and is a fun game that can be challenging and good for math skills.
Here is a screen capture and review of some of the central mechanics of the game