What is SUM! ?
SUM! is a very simple game. Make as many 10s as you can! That’s it.
Find a combination to make a 10. Drag one ball to the other. When a 10 is made, it’ll disappear.
Tap a ball twice and it splits into 2 balls.
When the screen is full of balls, the game is over.
Little kids can play SUM! almost as well as adults, so it’s a great game to enjoy competing together.
SUM! has been very popular since its release in 2016 and it ranked No.1 as a paid app for kids (5-8) in the App Store in Japan (June 2016).
“A Cute and Brilliant Approach to Introducing Early Math Concepts”
– Geeks With Juniors
Tips to get high scores
Throughout the game, when the big numbers like 7 to 9 appear, it is dangerous because they take up lots of space! So it is the most popular combo tips to keep small numbers in stock from 1 to 3 so when large figures appear, you can add them to those large ones quickly so you get more combos easily. Try it!
When a ball falls from above, it shouts its own number. As you get used to the voices, you will be able to figure out which number has appeared even if you don’t see it and you can find a pair that makes 10 very quickly. This technique is not known very much, but many of the people who get super high scores listen to the sounds of the characters.
3. Decide the timing to give up combos
You can earn good points with combos, but you cannot keep going forever. You have to give up the combo and make other figures when you get lots of balls in the screen. The background of the game screen is divided into four blue areas. This is to make it easy for you to know the point of danger “if the figure comes up to here, it is dangerous”. Users who score more than 10,000 points often seem to give up combos when the balls accumulate in the second area from the top, but until your score reaches that high, it is good to make it up to around the middle.
Best way to pile up the balls (Advanced technique）
Because all characters are round, gaps are made as you stack them up, but in fact you can fill small balls in these gaps. If you do not want to waste any space at all, try to fill in the gaps with small numbers stacked on top. Though it’s just a little, you can create some new space above!
Current highest score
As of June 23rd, 113,370 points are the highest score! Recently, everyone’s level is coming up, records are steadily updating. Check out the game center!
Children can do the addition faster & adults get their brains activated!
Keep playing SUM!, and you will be able to find a pair that makes 10 at a glance. There is a fun blog post written by a mom of a first grader of elementary school who plays with SUM! every day, saying the speed of the calculation went up!
「日に日に計算スピードアップ」(blog in Japanese)
For even younger kids
For younger children who cannot catch up with speed of the game, they can play with character introduction movies, where number characters do funny dances. Tap them to enjoy two kinds of animation for each.
In the update on 1st June, new animations of the characters were added. If you haven’t seen the movies for a while, please try it!
You can now see the whole animations on the website, too! (Recommended to see on desktop PC)
3 International Design Awards
SUM! has been awarded three international design awards:
More tips to enjoy SUM!
When you pause the game, you see a sleeping character in the middle of the screen. Try tap it!
Try these techniques and let me know if you find any new ones!!