To the person played the game and thought it was simple and ridiculous I have to say you did not spend very much time on the game. The game builds in new rules as old ones are mastered. No prior knowledge is needed is needed to start the game so it starts at a low level. One you get ino the game, solving the problems in the fewest number of steps becomes more challeging. This game teaches students to seek out the most effiecient strategy to solve a problem so players are encouraged to resolve problems to get full points. My son and I Iove to take turns solving the problems, and since my son sees the problems as puzzles not math, it is not hard to get him to do math. My son was able to skip one year of math due to math games such as this. I highly reccomend this game.