Getting Started with Math Gates: Your First Machine

Math Gates opens on a board with a number on one side and a port on the other. There is no lesson first and no menu of modes. You tap a cell, choose a piece, and press Run. This post walks through the first ten minutes: reading the board, placing a gate, using the preview line, and understanding what you get when a puzzle is cleared.

What Is Math Gates?

Math Gates is a number puzzle for iPhone and iPad, made for ages 8 and up and for any adult who likes a quiet puzzle. A bit carrying a number leaves the source and travels in a straight line. Gates change the number. Mirrors bend the path 90 degrees. The port at the end only accepts the value it asks for. There are 140 puzzles in 7 worlds, from adding and subtracting to true, false and logic gates.

Step 1: Read the Board Before You Touch It

Every puzzle gives you three things to read. The source, with an arrow showing which way the bit will leave. The port, with the condition it wants, such as exactly 10, an even number, or a multiple of 3. And the walls, which stop the bit if it runs into them.

The first question is always the same: what does the bit hold now, and what does the port want? The gap between those two numbers is most of the puzzle. The very first discovery card in the game is about exactly this.

Step 2: Tap an Empty Cell

There is no tray to drag from. You decide where first, then what. Tap an empty cell on the bit’s path and a small list of pieces appears: the gates you have left and the mirrors. Pick one and it drops into place.

To change your mind, tap the placed piece again. The same list comes back, with an option to take it away. That is the whole control scheme. I wanted it to be learnable in about three seconds, because the thinking in this game should go into the math and not into the buttons.

Step 3: Watch the Faint Line

Every time you place a piece, the route the bit would take is drawn faintly on the board. You can see where it will hit a wall, what value it will carry into the port, and whether the port will take it, before you press anything.

A short line above the board says the same thing in words: it hits a wall, this gate will not take that value, it arrives as 7 and the port wants 10, or this will reach the port. For the first three puzzles, that line also tells you what to do next, and after that it gets out of the way.

Step 4: Press Run

When the line says it will reach, press Run. The bit travels, the number changes at each gate, and the port opens. Run is less a test than a small reward: you get to watch the machine you built actually work.

If it does not reach, nothing is lost. There are no timers, no lives and no penalty for trying again. Move a piece and look at the line.

Step 5: Understand the Stars

The tray always holds one more gate than you need. Reaching the port earns one star. Reaching it with one gate more than the minimum earns two. Reaching it with the fewest gates earns three.

The minimum is not shown before you play. It appears on the result screen after you clear, as “It can be done with fewer gates” when there is a shorter machine. That is deliberate. Showing the target first would give away the shape of the answer.

Step 6: Read the Discovery Card

When you clear a puzzle, a card may appear that names what you just did and shows the formula behind it. Two flips bring you back. Doubling any whole number gives an even one. The order of adding does not matter, but the order of adding and multiplying does.

There are 28 of these, four in each world, and they collect in the Codex. The formulas are written in symbols only, so they are the same in every one of the app’s 22 languages.

Step 7: Know Where the Hint Is

If you are truly stuck, the Hint button places the next piece of the best solution for you, in the order the bit meets it. One piece at a time, and that piece cannot be moved afterwards. In the free version, a hint costs a short ad. If the ad cannot load, for example when you are offline, the hint is given anyway. Using a hint does not lower your stars.

The “?” button opens How to play, four short steps you can read at any time.

What to Expect in the First Week

Puzzles in a world open one after another. The next world opens once you have cleared 12 of the 20 puzzles in the one before, so you can leave a hard one behind and come back later. I designed each puzzle to take somewhere between half a minute and a few minutes, so a handful of them makes a reasonable session.

A first week that gets through First Circuit and into Times Circuit is a good week. That is where order starts to matter, and where the mirrors start to earn their place.

Where to Go Next

Once your first machine has run, see how it compares with other options, pick up practical tips, or see who the app is for. All related posts are collected under the Math Gates tag.

The first puzzle starts at 3 and wants exactly 1. One gate and one mirror will do it.