Developed/Published by: Nintendo
Released: 27/08/1983
Completed: 29/03/2025
Completion: I can do basic arithmetic! I mean I could do it before. But I still can, so I didn’t get any worse at least.
After playing Gomoku Narabe Renju I had a choice: re-learn how to play mahjong so I could play the fifth ever game released on the Famicom or jump over to Donkey Kong Jr. Math because I hadn’t looked at that yet either.
I suppose there were other choices I could have made, but I got fixated on the fact I couldn’t find my copy of Clubhouse Games which I was pretty sure would teach me how to play mahjong again, so I decided what with me already knowing basic arithmetic, I should just look at one of Nintendo’s early attempts at edutainment (the other, “Popeye’s English Play” would only be released in Japan for obvious reason.)
Now, as we all know there’s “good” edutainment that we’re all fond of–your Oregon Trails and Carmen Sandiego’s–and there’s “bad” edutainment, things like Basic Math for the Atari 2600 (which I wrote about in exp. 2600). I think you can tell which one Donkey Kong Jr. Math is going to be.
It’s not just that it’s a maths game. It’s that like so many educational games, they somehow think that the action of doing something educational–in this case, a calculation–is enough to make it a game. Sure, in Donkey Kong Jr. Math you interact with the maths in the same way you’d play Donkey Kong Jr.–control Jr. and make him climb vines–but in every case you’re doing this to collect a number or operator to complete a calculation!
This is, obviously, very boring!
To be completely fair to Donkey Kong Jr. Math, I’m sure almost everyone played it single player, but it’s obvious that the game’s main mode, “Calculate” is meant to be played in two-player, competing to use the numbers hanging on vines and operators to calculate the number Donkey Kong is holding up before your opponent does. It’s entirely possible that the gang at Nintendo led by Toshihiko Nakago had great fun competing at this, and I suppose if you had an NES in a classroom this might be an entertaining way to do an arithmetic competition.
But I’m absolutely grasping at straws, because absolutely no one did this and anyone who had this cart at home absolutely had Super Mario Bros. or literally any other cart that they’d rather play. Like if you had a friend round, they’d absolutely rather sit and watch you play Mario hoping you’d give them a go than do maths. No one wants to do maths!
Will I ever play it again? If I get hit very hard on the head and forget basic arithmetic… sure.
Final Thought: I’m sure that much like Gomoku Narabe Renju and Mahjong were Nintendo’s attempt to make the system suit adults, this was an attempt to offer a thin veil of respectability to the console as more than just a game system along with Popeye’s English Play, and was supposed to be followed by “Donkey Kong’s Music Play” which–in its Famicom rendition at least–was absurdly planned to feature the ability to sing karaoke via the second controller’s microphone! It seems not to have happened for a few possible reasons: that it wasn’t fun, that there were copyright issues with included songs, or that it was just too hard to fit a music game on an early Famicom cartridge.
Something I have to consider, actually is that above I said “anyone who had this cart at home absolutely had … literally any other cart that they’d rather play” but in 1983 some Japanese children could have a Famicom at home and such well-meaning parents that they only had this and Popeye’s English Play for the system! Absolutely tragic.
