LetterWriter: Oceans is an upcoming educational game / virtual toy for Kindergarteners and Pre-K kids to help them learn to draw their letter glyphs using the proper order in a fun, undersea environment. It's our first iPhone offering, and we're really excited about it! Select a letter from a floating panorama, and you are presented with the letter's outline against a unique backdrop for the letter. An animation shows where you need to draw your stroke, and a friendly fish swims to the start point to show you where to begin. As you try to draw the stroke of the letter, the fish follows along after your finger. If you don't draw the stroke correctly, the fish returns to the start of the stroke and prompts you to try again. As kids successfully draw their letters, they earn starfish. Once they collect their fourth starfish for a letter, it unlocks a storybook which rewards them with an ABC poem. You can see some gameplay video at the web site for the game. Alpha and beta testing with kids has been really successful - they are really engaged with the game, and like the progress/mastery tracking the game does. Kids as young as two can understand what they are supposed to do, and can play the game. One child literally jumped out of his chair to tell his mother that he unlocked the storybook - I guess this idea of a game "unlocking" functionality, while familiar to us, is still fresh to four- and five-year-olds! I'm especially interested in hearing from parents of kids at this age range. What do you think? Do you think a game like this would help your child learn their letter writing? Do you even look for iPhone games that kids this young can play? And if you do, do you look for games they can play by themselves, or games which requires your coaching? These were some questions we had while developing, and I think we are hitting a sweet spot, but we'd love to hear the thoughts of other iPhone-toting parents interested in games for really young kids.
