iBokan - iPhone and Android App Development

About Cute Math

We borrowed a iPod Touch to develop our first app, Galaxy Impact.  Before it went out of door, we needed to test it on iPhone 2.1.  So I went to borrow an iPhone from a friend of mine, who was playing with his two-year old daughter named Lele and teaching her how to count. I said to him on the spot “I’ll create an app for Lele”, which turns out to be “Cute Math”.

Cute Math is really about helping parents teach their kids how to count from one to ten, in right sequence, and the concept of addition and subtraction, also helping busy parents shut their kids up by allowing them play games all by themselves while learning a few things along the way.

As a kid game, the real challenge is how to interpret the concept of numbers, sequence, addition and subtraction, and how to create a convenient mechanism to allow kids interact with objects.

We played with quite a few ideas and finally settled down on six mini games:

APPLE HARVEST: Helps to learn counting numbers from 1 to 10. A bird says how many apples it needs, and the player should drag apples of according number from the tree to the basket.

BABY PENGUINS: Helps to learn sequence of numbers from 1 to 10. Penguin mother calls little penguins from 1 to 10, player needs to drag the right penguin into the queue.

HAPPY BIRDS: Helps to learn the concept of addition. Two groups of birds are singing standing on the wires. Touch the center of the screen, one group of birds will fly to join the other group, visualizing the concept of addition. Player needs to drag the right answer from 4 optional numbers below the screen to complete the equation above.

FRUIT FALL: Helps to learn the concept of subtraction. Touch the center of screen, some of the fruits will fall from the tree, visualizing the concept of subtraction. Player needs to drag the correct answer from 4 options at the bottom of the screen to complete the equation above.

BALLOON BOUNCE: Random practice of addition and subtraction. 4 balloons with numbers on them float in the air. Player need to touch the one with the answer to the question above. The correct answer will be shown after that.

PARACHUTE JUMP: Random practice of addition and subtraction with time limit. 4 parachutes with numbers hang on them fall slowly in the night sky. Player needs to touch one of them to answer the question above. The correct answer will be shown after that. When the parachutes fall down behind the clouds, the time is up.

Finally, my friend’s 2-year old daughter became the first user, who really taught us the right size of buttons and location of buttons, the right color set and the sound track, before cute math went on sale.

It was a tremendous success instantly. It was featured on iTunes as “New and Noteworthy” from Jan 29 - Feb 23, 2009, ranked as high as No 2 on “Top Paid Apps” in Education category and stayed on Top 20 for about 7 weeks.

A lot of customers really like it:

The best game for kids I’ve found so far is Cute Math. Yes, you heard me right. Math that’s Cute!  (from Media Macaroni)

I found Cute math on iTunes app store a couple of weeks ago. Billy is very taken with it, and as a bonus, he’s learning addition and subtration. (from A Brooklyn Lad)