I convinced my mother to purchase the iOS version for all her grandchildren ... and then I played it. There was a distinct change in my behavior when there was a distinct change in the cards - they go from colorful bugs with different backgrounds to different symbols in black on white backgrounds. That's when I had to concentrate on what was actually on the screen and think about what moves to make.
I have yet to see what the younger ones do with it, but my 13yo found it somewhat interesting until he had to think - that made it less of a game for him and he became less interested.
My anecdotal experience with this game suggests that the same people who would excel at math (with a trait for "why is this wrong? let's try something else; let's dig deeper") will also excel at this game. Those that don't want to think are going to give up when the game changes.
This is not a solution for those don't want to think. But many who would gladly think if they cared will now find the transition to algebraic symbol manipulation lot less painful. Kids have their own set of "wants"... In most situations they have no clue how math is a path to satisfy such a want.
I once came across a thread on the scratch website where a student was saying he wanted to figure out how to use trig functions because the guys using trig functions wrote much better games. He(she) was complaining that all the explanations on the web made no sense to him(her). These kinds of tools together can ease the path for those who want to think, but never end up paying enough attention to math due to unnecessary hurdles that prevent exposure to deeper ideas. It is not a silver bullet, but definitely a nice tool in the hands of a teacher who wants to stimulate thinking and a student who wants to think.
I have yet to see what the younger ones do with it, but my 13yo found it somewhat interesting until he had to think - that made it less of a game for him and he became less interested.
My anecdotal experience with this game suggests that the same people who would excel at math (with a trait for "why is this wrong? let's try something else; let's dig deeper") will also excel at this game. Those that don't want to think are going to give up when the game changes.