The Team
We are a boutique software development company, with core values of creativity, respect and fun. We attempt to show that in our products and whenever dealing with our clients, too 🙂
Our core team consists of Thomas Brand (founder, principal software engineer), Alvir Timbang (graphic artist), Mary Elbambo (web engineer) and James Rheine (ideas man and customer support).
(A Brief) History of MathRider
MathRider was created by Thomas Brand, founder and managing director of Sharper Edge International Pty Ltd in Australia. Here is the story in his words:
I noticed how my two girls were continuing to finger count and feel very hesitant about their math skills in general. One day I received a call from a teacher about a test that our eldest daughter had filled in at school. Only one out of 40 math questions had even been attempted. It was really scary.
So I went into action, trying to encourage her and practice math facts with her. It turned out very hard work, and of course very repetitive.
I thought I had found the answer – purchase a fun math computer game! This would take care of all our problems. It would take care of the repetition driving both my daughter and me crazy. It would make practicing as much fun as possible, while guiding both my girls to full mastery of math facts. And I would no longer have to be task master and chief math facts checker. I could be dad again.
After trying and buying a few commercial games, we found none of them really worked and my kids didn’t like any of them, either.
In the end I gave up and decided to create my own game that didn’t suffer from any of the existing games’ shortcomings. Thankfully my background is enterprise-level software engineering….
That is how MathRider was born.
MathRider V7
Thomas went to work and created the first prototype of MathRider in late 2013. The result was a labour of love (and too many long days and nights working at the computer).
Over the years we released six major versions, always tweaking and improving our existing game.
In 2022, we began a complete rewrite and reimplementation of MathRider using the industry-leading Unity development environment. This was to move away from the limitations of an aging Adobe Air runtime and development environment, and to make MathRider truly shine.
While Thomas is still the principal developer and creative force behind MathRider, the version you see today is the result of more than 10 people working on the software. Without their talent and dedication, MathRider wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective and joyous to use.
As a quick end note, his eldest daughter did overcome her fear of math. In fact, she went on to take advanced math in high school and received her school’s award for best overall academic achievement across her entire graduating year of more than 300 students.
Thank you
We also want to thank all of you who tried and/or purchased the game and gave us feedback. Without your generous suggestions, we would not have been able to update and enhance our game this much! Thank you!
Lastly, from all our developers, graphic artists, narrators, musicians, illustrators and testers, thank you for considering our game!
The MathRider software and all associated copyright is wholly owned by Sharper Edge International Pty Ltd, Australia. Elements of the product are patent pending.
