170. Sansu 5+6-nen: Keisan Game (Tokyo Shoseki, Famicom, 1986)

Sansu 5+6-nen: Keisan Game ("Arithmetic 5th & 6th Grade: Calculation Game") is a bit more fun than its extremely dry title implies. This is a video game primarily developed to drill Japanese 5th and 6th graders on decimal and fractional arithmetic, but it is also a video game first and foremost. The game has 2 modes that I assume covered government mandated standards for Japanese 5th and 6th graders in 1986:

Multiplication and Division of Decimals

The decimal game is presented as a sci-fi action game. It starts as a a pretty trifling horizontally scrolling shooter, but after surviving for about 30 seconds, your ship enters a port and then you are controlling the pilot in a single room with a top-down view. A math problem appears on the right side of the screen with a question mark obfuscating a digit of the answer, and the left side of the room that you are in has the numerals 0-9 lining the wall.

Your task is to take the correct number from the left side of the screen and bring it to the indicated question mark block on the right while dodging lasers. Luckily, you can pause the game to figure out the math problem so you don't have to do math and dodge lasers at the same time.

Multiplication and Division of Fractions

Fractions are covered in a gardening minigame. You have a 2-screen-wide play area where various red and white turnips have been planted in various formations. Odd numbers are on the left side of the playfield and even numbers are on the right, and at the top of the screen is the math problem you are working on. Just like in the decimal game, you have a questions mark on the math problem that you have to match to the correct number, but instead of just walking up to the number and pressing a button, you have to grow and push turnips into the correct numeral's area.

You have a watering can to help the plants grow, and you also have some kind of spray attack that can disable the enemies wandering around the level. For whatever reason the red plants do not work to trigger the numbers, you have to move them out of the way. Thankfully the block pushing is about as easy as the easiest Zelda puzzles, so in this game you actually could easily solve the math problem while playing the game.

3/5, a couple decent minigames with some math education on top