Developer: Anders Carlsson
Genre: Maths Puzzler
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

"Sokoban + Maths = Fun" claimed R Tape, back in July, and I can't say I entirely agreed.

So what happens if you remove the Sokoban element entirely and increase the difficulty of the Maths? Anders Carlsson is back to answer that very question!

There's a simple-but-effective loading screen$ to start us off, however, it's the title screen that that I was most impressed with; Anders procedurally cycles the attributes on the oversize DIVIDE logo in a devilishly clever manner that the below .gif doesn't begin to do justice.

The are 3 levels to the game, which will hopefully make sense by the end of the review; Easy (5,) Medium (3) and Hard (7.)

I couldn't make head nor tail of the mathematical jargon in the instructions (divide.txt) provided; quotients, divisors, dividends - they're all real mathematical terms, however, it's been 20 years since I left higher education and - frankly - I'm rusty as hell.

It all fell into place once I started playing though, but just in case, I'll try to explain it to my fellow thickos with a simple example:

You start off with a big random number (let's use 1003) which you need to divide by a smaller number (let's use 5,) i.e.:
1003 ÷ 5 = 200.6

The resulting number, however, must be a whole number (i.e.: no decimal places) so you can adjust the big number - using O and P - in order to make it so (Thanks Jean-Luc - Ed) and then press D to Divide, i.e.:
1005 ÷ 5 = 201

We then divide again, i.e.:
200 ÷ 5 = 40
^{(adjusted from 201 ÷ 5 = 40.2)}

And then again, i.e.:
40 ÷ 5 = 8
^{(no adjustment necessary)}

Finally the last division should result in a 1, i.e.:
5 ÷ 5 = 1
^{(adjusted from 8 ÷ 5 = 1.6)}

Note: If your attempt to Divide results in a non-whole number (whether because you guessed wrong, or just hit the D key unintentionally) then you lose one of your 3 lives.

Division by 5 is easy enough - keep the final digit in the big number at either 5 or 0, and then end on 5 itself - and you'll be a winner.

I don't know about you, though, but my recollection of the 3x and 7x tables don't stretch much past double figures, let alone the 10,000-60,000 range where the big random numbers start at.

Add to that an aggressive time limit and I think even Vorderman and Riley would struggle - with or withouth the 'cheat sheet' wall charts I've put together!

Happy New Year!