Math Games | School Visits | Zombie Maths Days
Get every pupil engaged and excited about doing maths
This is the best maths game I’ve ever seen
Craig Thompson-Wood | Teacher | Peel District School Ontario, Canada
City of Zombies
Developed with help from children, parents, teachers and gamers
Play at home or in class
Quick setup ready for play.
Customisable play time for 1 to 6 players, from 15 to 45 mins.
Gets even the most reluctant mathematicians engaged and involved.
Mixed abilities can play together.
This is the best maths game I’ve ever seen
Craig Thompson-Wood
Teacher · Peel District School Ontario, Canada
Engages even the most reluctant learners
The game is amazing, my reluctant to learn ASD daughter aged 9 loves this game, couldn’t recommend it enough
Anna-marie Bleby
Fab for mental maths development
This is a fab game for developing mental maths skills. I’ve played it with children ranging from 6-12 years old and all of them have loved it
Jo Staples – Wantage Primary School
Collaboration and team work
Encourages collaboration and team work and really gets children to think about numbers
Chat
Chat with Matthew, designer of City of Zombies, about how his maths games can boost numeracy levels in your school
Liz Woodham, a Primary coordinator shares some of her thoughts on City of Zombies
No wrong answers
Some children don’t enjoy mathematics, perhaps because they feel they are always under time pressure to get a ‘correct’ answer. City of Zombies requires learners to do a huge amount of calculating, but in their own time. It provides a reason to perform all these calculations and the engaging context spurs them on.
Team-working skills
The more we give children chances to work as a team, the better they will get at team-working skills. Working on a mathematical task as a team also helps improve children’s individual problem-solving skills, as they see ways of working that they may not have come up with themselves, and have a chance to refine ideas by talking to others.
Higher-order skills
Sometimes, as teachers, we set children particular tasks which are ‘closed’, so that the calculations they perform are planned out for them and there may be just one answer in each case. This game requires children to decide for themselves what calculations they perform and it encourages them to look for alternative solutions rather than sticking to the first possibility they come across. Making decisions in this way is a much higher-order skill compared with simply answering set questions.
Adaptable for a wide range of ages
City of Zombies can easily be used in a whole-class setting, with everyone starting on the same difficulty. The teacher could then throw in supplementary questions and suggestions for those who need more of a challenge. Some ‘low attaining’ children are used to being given completely different tasks to others in their class and so having the same starting point can be a huge confidence boost to them.
Strategic thinking
City of Zombies offers opportunities for children to develop winning strategies rather than just relying on chance. Again, this involves high-order thinking.
Every child’s a winner
A game like this often leads to surprises in that children who might have been considered ‘low attaining’ can shine.
City of Zombies is not only being used for home education it’s being used in schools and colleges around the World to improve maths.
Bring Maths to life with City of Zombies
Pupils at Cokethorpe School enjoying a Zombie Maths Day School Visit
Contact us about our maths games and arranging a visit to your school
Teacher Craig Thompson-Wood talks about the amazing difference City of Zombies has made to the math skills of his pupils.
Teacher Craig Thompson-Wood talks about City of Zombies and how he implements the game in his classroom.
Paul Grogan provides an overview of how to play City of Zombies
Testimonials
We recently had the pleasure of holding a Zombie maths day at our school and I think all of the students will agree it was a great day.
The game’s central idea of defeating hordes of Zombies is a fantastic way to get students’ attention and the excellent illustrations on the board and playing cards added to its attraction. The basic rules are simple enough that all of our students could have a go, while the more able students delighted in stretching their arithmetic skills to finding some of the more tricky numbers.
I particularly like the ability to ‘power up’ (square) and ‘power down’ (square root) your answers; a great way to practise these important skills and help students to remember what they mean.
Another thing that was a great success about the day was the teamwork aspect of it. Whereas most games involve competition against each other, ‘City of Zombies’ has the players working together against the board. This allowed less confident members of the class to join in without having as much pressure on them. It was also very interesting to see the leadership skills of some our students as they suggested strategies to their teammates.
We bought some copies of ‘City of Zombies’ and ‘Times Square’ to keep in school and they are now regularly requested by the students during maths lessons and free time. It’s great to see how the students’ number skills are improving while doing something they enjoy.
In conclusion, I find ‘City of Zombies’ to be an excellent addition to the maths classroom. The students are improving their arithmetic, logic and teamwork skills and having great fun while doing so.
David Wilson | Teacher of Mathematics
Arc School Ansley
Teacher Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
I was pretty awful at maths at school, I just didn’t ‘get it’. When I saw my 10 year old daughter struggling with her maths in the same way I had done, I was determined to help her. Unable to find any maths learning activity that was fun or engaging I decided to design one for her.
I always loved playing board games when I was young and I felt if I could design a game that was really fun and addictive to play, but that sneakily got her practicing and applying lots maths without her realising then I was onto a winner.
After I had designed and developed the game, with the help of teachers and gamers (and tons of playtesting with kids and in school classrooms) I approached lots of board game publishers, as soon as they realised it was an ‘educational’ game they thought the gameplay would be rubbish (most educational games are, that’s the problem!). In the end, after showing the game to the owners of a local games shop (Eclectic Games), they helped give me the confidence to self publish City of Zombies, and with the help and support of friends and family, the game launched as a finished product in mid December 2013, here in the UK.
Yes, at the moment I ship my games worldwide, and they are played in homes around the globe, and used to help children with their maths in schools from here in the UK to Canada, Korea, Singapore and beyond!
After I published City of Zombies I was spending a lot of time running ‘Zombie Maths Days’ in school across the UK. Teachers kept asking me if I had anything to specifically help children practice the 12 times tables, so I created a mini stand alone game based on CoZ called Times Square. It was published in 2016 and can be played with or without a copy of City of Zombies.
I have also designed and published Alana’s Animals, a pre-school yearly years numeracy game suitable for children as young a 3, but still fun for adults to play 😉
Alana’s Animals is also available from Genius Games who are publishing it in the US.
Yes, Fantastic Quests is an Ancient Greek themed algebra game where players compete against each other or work together to be the first to complete six fantastic quests set by Zeus, king of the Gods.
You can find out more about Fantastic Quests here
Outnumbered: Improbable Heroes is a maths game based on City of Zombies that’s being published by Genius Games, a US based educational games company.
They have taken the core gameplay of CoZ, made some changes to the theme (it’s now superheroes vs villains) and some gameplay tweaks.
It’s launching in the US soon, and should be available from retailers Worldwide from Q2 2021.
Available to preorder now, you can find out more information here
I’m happy to visit schools, provided I can do a tour of several schools in your country/area.
Talk to me about what your requirements are. Currently we are in the middle of the Covid pandemic, but I’m happy to plan future tours and visits with you.
I visit your school for the day. I teach and then play City of Zombies with classes of up to 36 pupils. Typically I spend between and hour and an hour and 15 mins per class.
I’ll teach as many classes as I can in a day.
Do you have a question?
You can chat directly with Matthew, designer of City of Zombies.
If for any reason I’m unavailable you can always leave me a message.