Common Sense Media Review
By Amanda Bindel
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Great math practice with fun story, entertaining characters.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 7+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Mystery Math Town
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
Kids are on a mission to help find fireflies that have been trapped in jars and hidden in houses throughout MYSTERY MATH TOWN. To find the fireflies, they move through different houses in the town, collecting numbers as they rescue the fireflies. They'll need the numbers because to move from room to room, through doors, out windows, or up and down stairs, they'll have to solve reverse math problems. For example, kids see 1, 2, 5, 8, and 9 and must choose two numbers to add up to 10. Finding the fireflies in one house unlocks the next house, where the maze-like rooms get trickier and the math problems do too. In some houses, kids also can collect gold coins to be used to buy portraits for their galleries. Those portraits also have lots to say, about each other, themselves, and the town. Kids create their own avatars (although only one skin tone is available), and multiple users can create profiles on the same device. Players can customize the level of math challenge, too.
Is It Any Good?
Listening to a kid playing Mystery Math Town, parents might not realize right away their kid is working on math because of the guffaws over the witty, sometimes snarky, talking portraits. But interspersed with the laughter, parents may pick up on the sounds of a kid being challenged by the progressively harder math equations as they have to search through the town's houses to find the numbers they need to create and solve problems. The mysterious setting, funny townspeople, and discoveries throughout the houses keep kids engaged, and the math keeps them challenged.
Developer Artgig Apps, also creator of the excellent Marble Math apps, includes great features on Mystery Math, including customization options, a well-done help section with strategy hints, and a kid-friendly, plain-English privacy policy in the app. It does not, however, track progress or data, so it's hard to assess how a kid is doing.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Steer kids to Mystery Math Town for daily math practice.
Talk about math and numbers as you go about your day, modeling solving backwards problems. For example: "I need to choose five fruits for your school snacks this week. How many ways can you make five?"
App Details
- Device : iPad
- Subjects : Math : addition , division , multiplication , subtraction
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : logic , strategy , thinking critically
- Pricing structure : Paid (An iPhone version is also available for $2.99.)
- Release date : April 3, 2013
- Genre : Education
- Topics : Fantasy
- Publisher : Artgig Studio
- Version : 1.0
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 4.3 or later
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate