Love it or hate it, math is an integral part of our day-to-day lives. And as far as video games are concerned, no other scientific field is as integral to their very existence, from the logic that binds together the underlying code of our best first-person shooters to the numbers that govern player stats and attributes in a typical RPG.
But while there are a lot of mathematical calculations taking place under the hood of the typical video game, it is less common to find ones that feature math principles as a part of their gameplay. Nevertheless, several have managed to integrate some of those principles so seamlessly that even the most mathematically averse would barely notice their presence there. Here are just a few of the most prominent examples.
5 Resident Evil Zero
Math is scarcely the first thing one thinks about in a game about shooting your way through hordes of zombies, yet here we are. The games in the Resident Evil franchise are known for featuring numerous puzzles that players need to solve in order to progress, and quite a few of those puzzles have a foundation in mathematics.
Take, for example, the brakes control panel puzzle from the train in Resident Evil Zero. In order to stop the train from barreling out of control, Billy and Rebecca (the two protagonists) must work together to override its braking system manually. Players are presented with a panel containing a digital display showing two numbers (a nominator and a denominator) and a keypad of numbers and ten lights that get lit with each keypress. In order to solve the puzzle, they must find what combination of ten numbers would add up to the displayed denominator, which is basic arithmetic at its finest.
4 Portal
Video games have always had an element of spatial awareness to them, from guiding the ball with a paddle in Pong to gauging tricky jumps in Super Mario Bros. But if there is one game that took that spatial awareness to the next level, then it is certainly Portal, a first-person puzzle game that finds players using a portal gun to navigate through test chambers.
The game not only requires a lot of spatial reasoning on the part of the player but is also driven by other math and physics principles like the manipulation of kinetic energy. This is needed in order to coordinate the movement of objects between two portals. Advanced players can even launch themselves across great distances using such techniques or create infinite loops to try to trap enemies. The game gives them all the tools required to pull off such feats, and the possibilities remain limitless.
3 Half-Life 2
The original Half-Life was one of its era's most innovative first-person shooters. For example, it was the very first shooter to require players to throw grenades using an arced trajectory to make them go further. The second game takes all that groundwork to a whole new level, though, with the introduction of a fully-realized physics engine.
Many of the puzzles in Half-Life 2 were built around that physics engine, allowing the player to set off chain reactions by manipulating objects within the game. It also included the aptly named gravity gun, a weapon that could pick up nearly any object and effectively turn it into a dangerous projectile. This allowed for several inventive solutions to puzzles and a whole new way of approaching combat scenarios that helped with ammo conservation.
2 Angry Birds
Speaking of arched trajectories and physics engines, Angry Birds is yet another video game that shows implementations of mathematical principles. Released on iOS in 2009, the game charges players with launching an arsenal of birds at various pig fortresses of varying complexity, with the goal being to knock down every last pig within those structures.
The game is played primarily using a touch screen, over which players drag their fingers to shoot their birds at the targets using a giant slingshot. The tricky part is aiming at the right angles while also generating enough force to do structural damage to the fortress, which is built from various materials such as wood, stone, and sheets of ice, all of which have their own unique properties and ways they respond to impact from the various birds. The game is simple to get into but grows progressively harder with more difficult challenges in later stages.
1 Braid
Another video game released in 2009 that features elements of math is Braid, a puzzle-platformer developed by Jonathan Blow. In it, players play Tim, a man in search of a princess that was kidnapped by an evil monster. What sets the game apart from other platformers is Tim's ability to manipulate time.
The player can reverse time with the press of the button, which can be used to avoid obstacles as well as solve many of the game's puzzles. The various stages they adventure through all present a slight variation on that ability. For example, everything flows in reverse by default in the final stage. In real-life, time manipulation has been relegated to the realm of theories, but underpinning most of those theories is the mathematics needed to make them understandable, and Braid serves as a good example of their depiction in video game form.