Summer of Math Exposition

We’ve gamified the elementary logical reasoning that underpins mathematical proof, and wrapped it in a bite-sized, memorable narrative. Players wander a strange room of shapes, probe the scene, and — through curiosity, trial-and-error, and a cranky sidekick— slowly notice patterns. The game intentionally avoids front-loading rules: players discover the notion of similarity by doing, not by being told, and are rewarded with micro-affirmations that encourage further exploration. After players stumble onto similarity in the sandbox, the game unlocks a short, formal letter — a friendly, no-nonsense note that lays out AA, SAS, and SSS. The letter translates the player’s informal “these look the same” into concrete, defensible statements about equal angles and proportional sides, gives clean proof templates, and points to which in-game clues map to which formal conditions. It’s concise and readable by design: not a lecture, but a practical bridge that turns intuition into the language and structure of real mathematical proof. The design emphasizes autonomy, low friction, and reproducible learning. By blending investigative gameplay with a short, targeted lesson, we give learners a memorable route into why similarity works—and equip them with the actual proof tools they’ll need to use it. This project is compact, learner-focused, and meant to fit both as an entertaining microgame and as an educational bridge from intuition to formal reasoning. This game was made by two self-taught high-schoolers with no previous experience, little to no mental bandwidth (thank you exams!) and very short time. But we had tons of fun making this and it was certainly a very good learning (and humbling!) opportunity.