Pillbug Golf

Pillbug Golf is an educational shareware title from Curry Software (curry@kagi.com) that wraps lessons on points, slopes, and angles inside a putting game. Pitched as the first release in a planned "Birds' Math Picnic" series, it asks students to tee off by solving math problems whose answers steer the ball.

Math behind every putt

Each math skill (points, slopes, angles) is broken into Beginner, Amateur, and Pro categories so the same course can stretch across ability levels. Per the Info-Mac header, the design lets students "see the real effects of wrong answers and correct their mistakes" rather than simply marking a question wrong.

Built-in tools

The game ships with a 360-degree protractor and a calculator as on-course accessories, but they are deliberately not available on every stroke - players are pushed to use mental math and estimation in between. Built-in help screens explain each math skill with short interactive demonstrations of the underlying concept.

What 2.0 added

Version 2.0 expanded the original release with a full nine-hole course, a "funky" high-scores screen, saved games, new music and speech, and a printable player's guide, alongside fixes for assorted glitches. The unregistered demo lets you sample Beginner-level Points and peek at the harder skills.

Audience and pricing

Pillbug Golf is shareware: $12 for one home, $120 for a business or school site license, with registration unlocking all skills and levels. PowerPC is required (anything from a PowerPC Performa up to iMac/G3), with 100 MHz or better recommended; the author notes "Plays great on iMac!"

Sources and limits

Macintosh Garden has no dedicated page for Pillbug Golf, so the description above is drawn from the BinHex headers of pillbug-golf-12.hqx and pillbug-golf-202a.hqx in the Info-Mac archive.