Lure of the Labyrinth: the FableVision pre-algebra game today

FableVision, an educational media developer based at the Boston Children's Museum, produced the game in collaboration with Maryland Public Television (MPT) and the MIT Education Arcade, and the game launched in 2009. The Education Arcade's creative director, Scot Osterweil, led the design team. A grant from the US Department of Education's Star Schools Program funded the work, and the game was free to play.

Students moved through three wings, each tied to one strand of a typical pre-algebra course: proportions, including fractions and ratios; variables and equations; and number and operations, including geometry and order of operations. Each wing held three puzzles of three levels, and a puzzle had to be solved three times before a room could be eliminated.

The setting was an underground, monster-filled world. Students entered a shadowy factory to rescue a missing pet, and they took on a monster persona to pass as insiders while working through math problems. Players could work alone or in teams, and an online communication device let them swap ideas and strategies.

Maryland middle school teachers advised on and tested the game at every stage. A set of educator materials explained each part of the game for teachers who were not gamers themselves, with suggestions for small and large classroom use. Osterweil's design principle was that learners succeed through trial and error and use feedback from short setbacks to build a deeper grasp of the math.

The old game address now forwards to a Lure of the Labyrinth page on Thinkport, Maryland Public Television's education site. That page states that the full game has been retired because Adobe Flash was phased out. It adds that Labyrinth players freed more than 40 million pets and that the game debuted in 2009.

One puzzle survives. The Vending Machine puzzle, in which students help a character buy a snack by working with variables, algebraic expressions and systems of equations, has been rebuilt and is offered through the YouTube channel Math with Mr J as a YouTube Playable. The page lists it for grades 6 to 8 and Algebra I, at about 20 minutes, with lesson plans for sixth to eighth grade and Algebra I. It expresses the hope that the whole game will return if funding allows.