Kids & Games: Practical Applications for Math

I am fortunate to have known since early childhood what my calling was: computers, and more specifically, software development.  What really piqued my interest and fueled my addiction however was video games.  And not just because they were fun to play, but because I needed to understand how they were built.  More than anything else, I needed to break them down to their core to try and grasp the underlying fundamentals of what made them work. QBasic Gorillas anyone?

Ka-BOOM! Watch out for exploding bananas my hairy-chested gorilla friends!

I’ve also seen many people struggle with math as they fail to see how it applies at all to real life.  I vividly remember desperately trying to help my little sister Suz comprehend the ever-out-of-reach concepts (Hey Suz, look at me! I’m blogging!)

Video games of all types (and i’m excluding the obvious educational games) are BUILT on math.  Those 3D first person shooters? Truck loads of math!  Granted, not all kids enjoy playing video games but it always seemed that if you could connect games and math you might just keep a few more kids interested and perhaps lead them into those STEM fields which people tell me are the future!  (Which is also my present… and future… Mind. Blown.)

So, here goes nothing.  Over the next few months, I’m going to put together a series of tutorials that will guide anyone who’s interested towards creating the basics of a game.  All source code will be made public so anyone can give it a shot, and it will even run on their Android or iOS devices.  And not just any game… but how about some of the underlying source for our upcoming game! (Yeah! Woohoo!)  Ok, ok!  Settle down everyone.

WARNING! WARNING! This screenshot is very early and does not represent the final game in any way!

Believe it or not, the underlying mathematical principles used to create the terrain above are not that complex, and includes some beginning algebra along with basic geometry.  It may sound daunting to some, but I’ll be sure to do my best to explain it all, piece by piece.

Looking forward to next time!

– Matt from http://www.railwaygames.mobi