I've Got Your Number! (Odyssey^2, 1979)
Entry posted by Mezrabad ·
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I've Got Your Number! (Odyssey^2, 1979) 
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This is an educational title pretending to be a game.
Each player controls a human shaped figure that starts on either side of the screen. An equation shows up at the bottom middle of the screen. A question mark denotes the unknown element of the equation. In the main playing field is a sea of about a dozen or so shapes, symbols and numbers in two groups each rotating around a center symbol. The object of the game is to be the first player to correctly select the shape, symbol or number that replaces the unknown element in the equation by moving the human shaped figure to the correct symbol. If you touch the wrong figure with your human shaped thing, then you are sent back to your starting side and have to go after the correct one. You use the button to make your creature duck its featureless head underneath symbols you don't want it to touch.
The game is designed for either the very young, or the very, very old. My daughter took a few turns before she understood the point, but she was unable to really get a handle on controlling the Odyssey^2 joystick (it was her first time using it, she's good at using a Genesis gamepad but just doesn't seem to get joysticks).
The equations are pretty simple. For instance. "OOO=3?" in this case the correct answer would be "O". Or how about this one: "***=?*" in this case the correct answer would be "3". It is barely math, it is more like "Pre-Math". I see where the design is coming from, they're attempting to create an isomorphism for the player; alowing them to suddenly perceive "***" as equally representable as "3*". I wish someone would make a hack of it and put in equations like: (SSSSSSO*SSSSSSSO)=(SSO*SSSO*SSSSSSSO)=? just for the hell of it.
All in all, it's an education title.
I will say one thing, however, the human shaped figures were animated surprisingly smoothly; they weren't from the standard Odyssey^2 set of characters, either. They were bigger and moved very differently than anything we've seen yet. Maybe I'll post a little movie of them later if I can enlist my son to help me while I hold the camera.
Here's a pair of movies.
(DEAD LINKS. YES I'M SORRY. SO SORRY.)
See how smoothly they're animated? Pretty cool. Also note that the default background color is blue, but it changes to the color of whoever wins the point.
Something odd. Some of my Odyssey^2 boxes have stickers on the side in Japanese. I think I'm playing Odyssey^2 imports from Japan! Ooo!
(Translates to: "Play Arithmetic Game" so, really it's just "Fun With Numbers")
That's it for now. I'm in my final semester of college. I apologize for how infrequent my entries have been for the past year. Being a full-time student again is like always having voices in the back of my mind saying "Shouldn't you be working on X?", "Don't you have more reading to do for your class?", or "Why, WHY do they always come to me to die!?". I'm saying that there always seems to be more to do. Well, I've got one more paper to write, one more quiz to take, one more final exam to sit for, three more online discussions to wrap up, books to order for next session and then, finally, I'm free until January 7th. Yippee! On December 20th, I'll be a very relaxed guy, probably for the last time, ever. After I graduate in March, I'll have to find a job and then work for the rest of my life. Bummer. Whose idea was that?
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