Star Swoopers: an alien math game

How to play

A squadron of friendly aliens floats over the planet, and every alien is holding up a number. A fact appears at the top, such as 7 × 8 = ? or 56 ÷ 7 = ?. Find the alien with the answer, fly your little ship underneath it and fire a sparkle. Pop!

1. Pick one or more tables (or Mixed 2–12) and × Multiply, ÷ Divide or Mixed, then press Start.
2. Move left and right with the arrow keys or A and D, the ◀ ▶ buttons, or by tapping (or dragging) on the sky where you want to fly. Fire with Space or the Fire button.
3. Turn on Auto-fire (on by default on phones and tablets) and the ship fires one sparkle each time it stops, so tap under an alien and it pops.
4. The right alien pops into sparkles, you score points and the next fact appears. Answer in a row to build a combo (up to ×5).
5. Sparkle a wrong number and you lose a shield. The game shows the right fact, and the alien with the answer glows so you can find it.
6. Now and then an alien peels off and swoops down in a big arc. If a swooper bumps your ship, you lose a shield, so slide out of the way (or pop it if it's carrying the answer, for 50 bonus points).
7. You have 3 shields. Clear a wave to get one back. There are 5 waves: more aliens, quicker swoops and trickier look-alike numbers each time.

There's no countdown: the aliens wait for your answer, and the only hurry is dodging the swoopers. Reduced motion: the formation holds still, swoopers glide down in a straight line, and there are no sparkle bursts or moving stars.

What it teaches

Star Swoopers puts the answer in a crowd of believable wrong answers. To pop the right alien, players have to recall the fact, then pick it out from numbers that look right, much like a multiple-choice check.

• Same-table neighbours: early waves surround 56 with 49 and 63 (7 × 7 and 7 × 9), so players who skip count can still find it.
• Look-alikes later: from wave 3 the crowd can include 48 (6 × 8), 55 and 57, and 65 (the digits swapped). Only real recall sorts these out.
• Division as the missing factor: in ÷ mode the aliens carry 1 to 12, so 56 ÷ 7 is “what times 7 makes 56?”.
• Missed facts come back: a fact that tricked you returns a few questions later, and every miss is listed at the end with a link to its table.
• Calm accuracy beats speed: there's no clock on the question, and a wrong sparkle costs more than a slow one.