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Interactive learning games

Where play sparks thinking.

Wonderix turns learning concepts into interactive games. Kids make choices, test ideas, and discover what happens—with room to think and a little help when they need it.

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Coming first to iPad.

✓ Every game starts from something worth learning ✓ Your child makes the decisions ✓ Help only when it helps
Glowvale gameplay with a felt-doll player icon. The child has 8 sparks, three cards to choose from, and sleeping spirits waiting for 13, 16 and 17.
A moment in Glowvale: choose a card, add its sparks, and see which spirit wakes up. Your child's own felt doll marks their place in the game.
A look inside

Every game hands the decisions to your child.

Each one starts from something worth learning, and the working out is left where your child can get at it. Here are three we're building.

A library of numbered shelves, with three jump tiles chosen along the bottom and a GO button waiting.
Planning ahead

Your child plans the route, then runs it

The cart is parked at 15 and a book belongs on shelf 36. Your child picks three jumps from the tiles on offer, and nothing moves until they press GO. If the cart lands somewhere else, the plan is the thing to change.

Three jumps chosen: +10, +10, +1. GO not pressed yet.
A wooden geared wheel and ramp built in a 3D workshop, with a parts list on the left and sliders for the ball's mass, material and friction on the right.
Cause and effect

Your child builds it, then tunes it

The machine is made of named parts your child puts together: a wheel, an axle, a motor, a ramp. Then how each one behaves is theirs to change too. Move one thing, run it again, and watch what the ball does differently.

The ball's mass, material, bounce and friction are all open to change.
A metro map with a direction arrow, a stop counter set to one, a GO button, and two waiting passengers.
Direction and counting

Your child decides where the train goes

Two passengers are waiting, each with a stop to reach. Your child picks a direction, counts how many stops to travel, and sends the train. If it stops short, that tells them something useful for the next go.

Direction picked, one stop counted, GO waiting.

These are screenshots from our own builds, not a demo you can play in this browser. Wonderix is coming first to iPad.

Make it yours

A little character of their own.

Choose a hairstyle, try a new outfit, or add a hat. Your child creates the felt doll that appears as their player icon, and can change its look whenever they like.

A felt doll with golden braids and a navy moon-and-stars dress. A felt doll with auburn hair, a coral bow and a rose flower dress. A felt doll with a brown ponytail, a daisy hair clip and green overalls. A felt doll with brown braids, a pink bear-ear beanie and a lavender sweater.
The Wonderix doll maker, with a felt-doll preview and choices for skin, hair, hair color, face, clothes and headwear.
A look at the doll maker in our upcoming iPad app.
How a session works

Try something. See what happens. Think again.

Every session is short, and your child is the one steering it.

1

Make a move

The game holds the goal. Your child decides what to try first, and there is more than one way in.

2

See what happens

The game answers every meaningful action, so the result of a choice is right there to look at.

3

Think again

Watching what happened is where the learning lands. We leave that moment alone instead of filling it with talk.

4

Get help only if it helps

When your child asks, or the same thing keeps not working, help arrives at the smallest useful size. While they're getting somewhere, we'd rather stay out of the way.

Think, don't just watch

The game holds on to the goal. Your child picks the way there, and sees what each decision does.

Discover by doing

Children test an idea by trying it. They watch what happens, compare, and get to change their mind.

Get just-enough help

Help turns up when they are stuck, at the smallest size that moves them on, and steps back as they get steadier.

Our approach

The game sets the challenge. Your child owns the thinking.

Learning research points fairly consistently at three things: children need room to choose, something real to test, and help that arrives late and leaves early. Those three shape how we build.

Room to choose

The game holds on to the learning objective so your child doesn't have to. What is left for them is the interesting part: which approach to take, what to try first, and what to do about the result.

One goal, several ways in
walk · walk · walk · walk repeat walk × 4
Both plans walk the scarecrow to the last row, and a child who picked their own has a reason to care how it turns out. It also gives them something specific to change when it doesn't work.

Support that steps back

Not every move needs a comment. A child trying a new idea, or quietly fixing their own mistake, is already doing the work. We look at what happens across several moves rather than treating one tap as a cry for help.

✓Stay out of the way while they are exploring or self-correcting.
✓Step in when they ask, when the same attempt keeps repeating, or when a misunderstanding is settling in.
From least help to most: wait · notice what changed · point at what matters · suggest something to try · give the structure and keep the decision · show how
These are the design principles we build to. The shape of support varies from game to game.

On the research: a 2022 meta-analysis of 33 studies (3,894 learners) found a moderate but significant benefit for digital learning games over ordinary instruction (International Journal of STEM Education). That is about game-based learning in general, not about Wonderix. We're pre-launch and haven't measured our own results yet.

Why we built this

Children need room to try, watch, and try again.

A lot of learning apps are built around tapping the right box and collecting a star. The tapping is the game, the thinking is optional, and children are very good at skipping whatever is optional.

We build it the other way around. The game sets up something worth figuring out, the child makes the choices, and what happens on screen is the answer. The learning lives in what they do.

"If the interesting part of playing is working something out, that is the part a child will actually do."

Why we made Wonderix
For parents

The parts parents ask about first.

Here is how we think about the screen your child is holding.

Every line written ahead of time

What a character says in a game is written and recorded ahead of time. Nothing is generated while your child plays, and there's no live chat with a character.

No one character to come back for

Different games have different characters, on purpose. We'd rather your child came back for the puzzle than for a face.

Gentle stopping points

Sessions wind down instead of stopping dead. Finishing today's play is the thing we celebrate, and putting it down is never held against your child.

Plain words for you

We'd rather tell you what your child worked on in one sentence you can read on the way to school, instead of a wall of points.

Designed around children's privacy rules. We build to COPPA (US) and GDPR-K (EU): a parent's permission before a child uses Wonderix, only the data a game needs, never sold, and no ads shown to children. You can review or delete it at any time. Read our Privacy Policy.
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For educators and creators

We can build the games. What goes in them should come from people who teach.

We think this is the right way for children to learn. Hand them something worth working out, then leave the working out to them. We know how to turn a learning objective into a game like that, and we get better at it every month.

What we can't do from here is decide what is worth learning, or catch the moment a child quietly decides they're bad at fractions. That comes from people who have stood in front of a class.

A great deal of machine-made material is aimed at children right now, and a lot of it is filler. A child's attention is not a renewable resource. If you teach, and you want what your students meet on a screen to be better than filler, come and make it with us.

Join Creator Early Access

Creator tools are in development. This opens an email to our team, and there is no sign-up form yet.

Be among the first to explore Wonderix.

We haven't launched yet. Parents and guardians can join the waitlist for updates and an invitation when access opens.

Thanks. You're on the list, and we'll be in touch.

For parents and guardians. Please use a grown-up's email. Coming first to iPad. No spam, just a note when there is something to tell you. See our Privacy Policy.

Questions

The things parents ask first.

What is Wonderix? +
Wonderix turns learning concepts into interactive games. Your child explores, tries things out, and works the problem out for themselves, and help only turns up when it adds something. We're pre-launch, coming first to iPad.
How is this different from other learning games? +
A lot of learning games can be won by guessing or by collecting points, which makes the thinking optional. We start from something worth learning and design the play so that working it out is the game. Your child makes the decisions and sees what each one does.
Does my child just get told the answers? +
No. The game holds on to the goal and leaves the route to your child. While they're exploring, or quietly fixing their own mistake, we stay out of the way. When the same attempt keeps repeating, or your child asks, help comes in at the smallest size that moves them on.
Is this just another math app? +
No. The approach fits anything a child can explore and test. The games we are building so far cover planning and sequencing, cause and effect, and counting, with more on the way.
What happens when my child gets stuck? +
Being stuck for a little while is part of the work, not a sign that something has gone wrong, so we don't rush to cut it short. Help arrives when your child asks for it, when the same attempt keeps repeating without a change of approach, or when a misunderstanding is settling in. Those are the design principles we build to, and the shape of support varies from game to game. Read more: why getting stuck helps kids learn.
Who is it for? +
School-age children, and we'd rather not pin it tighter than that. What matters is whether a game gives your child something worth working out. Our first wave is built around elementary school topics, and material for older children is in development.
Will my child get attached to a character? +
We design against it. Different games have different characters, every line a character speaks is written and recorded ahead of time, and sessions have gentle stopping points instead of streaks. We'd rather your child came back for the puzzle than for a face.
When can we play? +
We haven't launched yet. Wonderix is coming first to iPad. Join the waitlist and we'll be in touch when access opens.
Does game-based learning actually work? +
The research on game-based learning in general is encouraging. A 2022 meta-analysis of 33 studies found a moderate but significant benefit for digital learning games over ordinary instruction. That is a finding about the field, not a result about Wonderix. We're pre-launch and haven't measured our own yet. Read more: why games teach reasoning better than facts.

More for parents on the Wonderix blog.