Sense Ladder

Each card in your hand carries a math problem; to cast it you must solve the operation correctly. Bosses on every floor attack each turn and probe whichever of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division you have been weakest at. Cast cards to deal damage and survive the climb.

• Play a card, answer its problem correctly, and it resolves.
• End your turn to draw again, but you take the boss's hit.
• Each floor's foe targets your weakest operation, shown as a hint.
• Reach as high a floor as you can before your HP runs out.

• Desktop: click a card to select it, type the answer and press Cast; use the number field for input.
• Phone & tablet: tap a card, type the answer with the on-screen number pad, and tap Cast.

• Daily seeded run or endless Practice, at Easy, Medium or Hard.

• Practise your weakest operation deliberately, bosses lean on it, so improving there pays off most.
• Spend strong cards on big boss turns and save cheap ones for chip damage.
• Do not rush the answer; a miscalculated cast wastes the card and the turn.

Sense Ladder fuses a card-battling roguelite with drilling the four arithmetic operations, so steady practice powers your run.

• Skills: the four operations, mental arithmetic, fluency, strategic planning
• Best for: roughly grades 2–6 (ages 7–12)
• For parents & teachers: sustained arithmetic practice wrapped in a progression people want to keep playing.

Casting a card only by solving its arithmetic correctly is drill wrapped in a deck-building climb, and the boss that probes whichever operation you have been weakest at is the original mechanism.

Targeting your weakness is the opposite of what a fixed problem set does.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are not learned at the same rate, and practice distributed evenly across them spends most of its effort where it is least needed. An opponent that finds the weak operation and attacks it is a difficulty system and a diagnostic at once.

Sense Ladder is an original free browser game from PlayPendium that fuses a card-battling roguelite with drilling the four arithmetic operations. Play instantly, no sign-up required.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.