Sunya (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

Math is a subject we have struggled with, so when given the opportunity to reinforce or help strengthen mathematics skills through fun activities, I'm all for it.  We have a few different games to help the kids work on their addition and subtraction skills that the kids have had fun playing on various opportunities.  When we were given the opportunity to review Sunya - The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtraction (which I will just call Sunya for the rest of the review) from Sunya Publishing before it's released to the public, we were pretty excited.  

A new company in it's infant stages, Sunya Publishing offers two variations of their Sunya card game - the Addition and Subtraction that we were given as well as a Multiplication and Division version for older students.  The Addition & Subtraction version is for ages 7 through adult and can be played solo or with up to five players at one time.  The set includes a 26 page School and Homeschool Teacher/Parent guidebook that includes instructions for game play for three different versions of the basic game as well as suggested math activities that can use the game cards, as well as math and science facts and riddles.  The game itself consists of 60 Playing Cards as well as 30 Riddle cards.  Also included is a useful cardstock numberline that ranges from -3 to 21.   Playing cards are comprised of numbers 0-9 (multiples of each number) as well as an Addition sign card, Subtraction sign card and an Equals sign card (1 of each).  One thing I do like is that each number card not only has the number but also shows a dot representation of that number which really helps with identifying numbers like 9 and 6 that can be flipped.

The purpose of the game is pretty simple. Basically, players are dealt a hand of cards and are asked to use their cards to alter a given number sentence in order to make a new and correct number sentence.  Players do this by placing a card in their current hand over cards in the existing number sentence on the playing field.  The game is complete when one player has placed all their cards down and their hand is empty. This player than announces they are"Sunya" which is a Sanskrit word that means empty and the player is basically saying "I am out of cards".   The winner then gets to draw a card from the Riddle Card Deck and read the riddle aloud.  While many of the facts on these cards were interesting (What is a googolplex) and some were funny (Why did the boy eat his homework? His teacher said it was a piece of cake.), I honestly didn't see how they tied into the game and their addition just seemed disjointed from the game's purpose. 

Ash and Garrett tried to play the game but right now they are so competitive that Garrett got upset when Ashleigh would change his word sentences..  They are both very competitive at this point and neither like to lose.

Yeah - He's a Sore Loser 

Now, while I said the game is pretty simple, you would not know this from reading the instructions.  It should not take an 8 page notebook to explain how to play the basic game.  The instructions are very complicated and are unclear at times.  As complicated of a game that Monopoly is, for example, it doesn't even have this much instructions for gameplay and this game is much much simpler. Unfortunately, I feel that this would be a huge deal breaker for the success of this game as many parents would be completely turned away by the instructions alone.  This could easily be fixed before the actual release of the game by having someone who understands game play to sit down and simplify the instructions for better understanding.

Overall, I think the game itself is nice and I can already see various ways we can use both the game as well as the number cards into various activities with our schooling.  The inclusion of the Riddle Cards seem to be the only tie to any Science in calling this game "The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science" and there's very little Science even with the cards.  My suggestion would be to lose the riddle cards, drop the Science tie to this game and instead rework the instructions for clarification for the actual Math game.  It's a good game and Sunya really should concentrate more on that portion of the product - if they did so, it would be a winner.