Last updated on November 30th, 2025 at 07:48 pm
Zero/Sum – Puzzle Game Review
Zero/Sum is a Puzzle game from Sean Kearney, first launched in 16th May 2018.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 27+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Zero/Sum Stand Out
On the eve of discovering a mathematical cure for cancer, your mentor, Professor Claire Liddy, is murdered.
Fortunately, before she died, the Professor was able to erase many of the plus and minus signs with her bloody hands, saving the cure from falling into the hands of her killers.
Now it is up to you to fill back in the missing parts of the equation and resolve your professor's cure. It's up to you to cure cancer — AGAIN!
(It's a comedy).
FEATURES
- A completely UNIQUE and ORIGINAL puzzle game!
- Puzzle gameplay that will make you feel and look SMART!
- A thrilling, 80s ACTION MOVIE-inspired storyline!
- Full motion video GREEN SCREEN cinematics! With REAL human ACTORS!
- NO mention of CANDY or CUPCAKES or sweets of any kind in the story at all!
- A variety of different puzzle types and mechanics to keep things FRESH (melting puzzles, number puzzles, and so much more)!
- A Daily Challenge Mode featuring 10 NEW puzzles EVERY DAY!
- Time Trial mode – try to beat your best time on RANDOM PUZZLES!
- Completely INDEPENDENTLY developed and published! (Support your local punk band)!
I ignored my newborn child to make this game, please ignore yours to play it!*
*Note: I worked on the game every night after my son fell asleep, there is nothing more important to me than being a father. That being said, this game is a CLOSE second. Like neck and neck, really.
This Puzzle game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Zero/Sum is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd July 2018
Recent improvements include:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
I listened to your comments and requests, and updated the build with your suggestions!
- The game now (automatically!) saves your progress with every puzzle!
- You can reset a puzzle at anytime by pausing the game!
- You can also skip the cutscenes (though I do hope you'll watch them at least once)!
- I infused the game with even more love and happiness! (By that I mean I fixed some bugs)!
Download & Availability
Zero/Sum is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Yes this is a game you should let your kids play.
We dont like math, but we love this game. It looks deceptively simple. The sounds in a game are important to us and the skidding and clunk sounds make us happy. The reward for winning ten founds another chapter of the super corny, funny movie. We do need a faq (we want to know how to get three stars) and please let us buy hints. Zero Sum would be perfect for teaching kids about negative numbers. Although, they would probably do better than us lol. Reading other reviews, we appreciate the customer service. Thanks for such a cool game, Squeezebox. Im really glad you were featured. 03/20/19.
Personally we hate timed things. We just want to work through it and get 3 stars. We thought that was this game, then we get to the timed part – which wasnt in the tutorial. Ugh. Not for us. Great idea and game but ultimately not for us.
Ridiculous equation for example: 8 – – – = 8, and how to solve equations to turn 0 into only 0, 1, 6, and 9. We checked the information, but it doesn't work to solve the problem and check your math dude.
Fun little math game that puzzles you to push the narrative forward. We hope in the sequel, we get to multiply and decide. If you ever played the card game 24 youll probably like this. You have to solve equations with pieces missing. Sometimes the operators and sometimes the numbers. Make everything equal zero, theres a little bit of sudoku where the equations cross and everything has to line up perfectly. Its not a long game, but its funny, challenging and never frustrating to the point of throwing your phone or rage quitting.
We've been looking for a math type puzzle game recently and just came across this one. So glad we did. It's a lot of fun and has a ton of character. It's very refreshing to see a game and a developer who knows how to have fun with a narrative.
Just started, and we already enjoy it. Good stuff.
We really enjoy this game. The premise is so easy: add plus or minus signs to get the equations to equal zero. The equations start out easy but become harder and harder progressively. We love the B-rated movie plot. We like the timed challenges (though we dont do well under pressure…haha). And we love the daily challenges. But… We despise having to restart a level, including listening to the B-rated movie video prior to where we left off. It would be awesome if this game had a Save where you left off option included. We have found a workaround by just leaving the game running in the background; however, when we power down our iPhone so its miniature computer can clear its cache, we are stuck with restarting the level again. We hope the App developer sees this and works to fix this tiny but highly aggravating issue. If he does, we can then easily rate this game five stars! NOTE: we would also like to have the option to turn on Daily Challenge notifications (badges,sounds,banners). Currently there is no such option. P.S. Looking forward to more games like this (with Save & Notification options of course!).
We are enjoying the problem solving aspects and challenges in this game. What we would love for the developers to include is a way to restart the board and a way to skip cut scenes. If you make a mistake but are a perfectionist the only way to fix it is to start at the beginning of a series which means you need to rewatch the cut scenes several times depending on your proficiency.
The vignettes are really the only reason to play this game. They are silly, dumb, and sometimes funny. The game, however, starts with a decent foundation and then just remains content to rest there. It never actually gets clever or fun, just more time-sensitive. The game is incredibly short too, as it has 80 puzzles, but each one takes about 20 seconds (at most) to solve.
Why the hell make it available for $2 for a device like iPad 2 when after the first "conversation," the app crashes. Quite infuriating.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.0.6
- Size: 973.09 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Medical/Treatment Information, Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence, Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
- Developer: Sean Kearney
Last updated: 3rd July 2018 | Genre: Puzzle | Developer: Sean Kearney