I recently built PondMath, a free browser game that turns mental math practice into a small frog adventure.
The basic idea is simple:
Solve a math problem correctly, and the frog moves forward across the pond.
Instead of presenting arithmetic as another worksheet or calculator-style interface, I wanted the practice itself to feel more like a lightweight web game.
PondMath currently includes:
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Multiplication
- Division
- Mixed arithmetic
- Endless Challenge
- A new Daily Challenge
There’s no signup and nothing to install — you can just open it in the browser and start playing.
A surprisingly interesting design problem was figuring out how much “game” to add.
Too little, and it feels like a normal math worksheet with a frog pasted on top.
Too much, and the game starts distracting from the actual mental math practice.
I ended up keeping the core loop very simple: solve → jump → progress.
I’m continuing to experiment with level design, difficulty progression, animations, and ways to make repeated practice feel less repetitive.
If you’d like to try it:
Feedback on the game loop or difficulty progression would be really useful.
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