5 ms·

Show HN: Tiny logic and number games I built for my kids

87 points by min2bro 1y ago

I’ve been building a few small games to help kids (and curious adults) build reasoning and logic skills. Think Word Ladder, Prime Hunter, Math Maze ,all in the browser, no installs. Would love feedback or suggestions for new types of puzzles

zakki 1y ago
I found that when no more prime number, the game still on. When I clicked non prime number game over and showed my score.
nickpsecurity 1y ago
I'll just pop in to say it's neat that you built that for your kids. The presentation is good, too.
jacobmarble 1y ago
FYI Firefox fails to load the page for me: > Secure Connection Failed > > An error occurred during a connection to quizmathgenius.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). > > Error code: SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP
- stevenkkim 1y ago
  Same for me.
  - countrymile 1y ago
    Firefox mobile quite happy here
seidleroni 1y ago
This is really great, well done! I have two young kids and was thinking about putting something like this together and I'm delighted that you beat me to it. Having a 6yo and 8yo, it would be great if there were some more basic games as well.
getnormality 1y ago
Prime Hunter sometimes generates sets with no prime numbers.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  Also, tiny nit but the text at the end says the largest known prime number has over 24 million digits. While technically true, the current largest prime number in fact has over 41 million digits! (Also, I love this. I hope you’re still hosting it once I have kids)
  - jldugger 1y ago
    > the current largest prime number in fact has over 41 million digits! Because there's an infinite number of primes?
    - kevinventullo 1y ago
      *largest known :)
- gjm11 1y ago
  In the few games I tried, it always ended up that way. You start with a few prime numbers (if you're lucky). Each time you click on one, it gets replaced with another number that usually isn't prime. After a short while, there are no primes left and then there's nothing to do but sit and wait for the game to end. Perhaps all the numbers should have a finite lifetime, after which they evaporate and a random new one replaces them.
  - kevinventullo 1y ago
    Or maybe right click to identify a number as composite.
- ethan_smith 1y ago
  I can confirm this bug - your random number generation algorithm should ensure at least one prime appears in each set, perhaps by maintaining a pre-computed list of primes within your range and guaranteeing inclusion of at least one.
ArekDymalski 1y ago
it's really nice (both idea/purpose and execution). what would be really great is having direct URLs for each game so you can share and point your kid to specific puzzle.
pizzathyme 1y ago
Have to ask: How old are your kids? Very fun puzzles! Do they like them?
2kblater 1y ago
I did something similar for my children – very suitable for ages 3 to 5: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3355240/Teach_Kids_Games/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3355240/Teach_Kids_Games/
- swah 1y ago
  Leaving the web environment makes stuff like this more exciting to me - is this Unity or Godot? Would love to learn Godot but have a hard time.
jamoner 1y ago
I was trying the sum game, but there was no combination of three numbers to add up to 15. I took a screenshot if it helps.
512 1y ago
This reminds me of the Optiver internship selection process.
dskhatri 1y ago
Nice work. I like the simple, unobtrusive and ad-free interface. I have kids who could use this although you face lots of competition for their very limited allotted active screen time [1]. The 6 yo gets 45 mins a week on the computer, usually opting for PBSkids, Kodable or Scratch. The 3 yo gets 15 mins usually opting for guided digital canvas painting as she learns to use a mouse. There are a few good no-screen puzzle books for kids (lookup the ones by Usborne). As a recent publisher of an interactive children's book [2], I am seeing more sales of the physical books than the digital/web editions despite the latter having more features including an element of teaching math. Curious if you considered publishing a physical book with these concepts/math puzzles? [1] This app inspires me to upgrade some of their passive screen time (TV) to more of your and similar apps [2] https://tendollaradventure.com https://tendollaradventure.com
- susiecambria 1y ago
  Holiday gifts will be ordered for fam, friends, and donations. Thx for the recs.
- min2bro 1y ago
  Yes, I am working on a Activity book for kids based on similar kind of games which I would be publishing sometime later this year. I've published a Math Brain Teaser book back in April and yes I can see the sales going up but not significant though. I'm still learning the art of marketing. Would love to know if you've any tips for me since you being an established author Math Brain Teaser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4PBNZWF https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4PBNZWF
  - dskhatri 1y ago
    I'm a debut author and not established by any means. I do have marketing experience and can provide the following suggestions: + Put all apps and books under one umbrella brand. Your book doesn't have a unique name associated with it. Little Math Genius or Little Math Whiz, for example. + Setup an umbrella website (littlemathwhiz dot com) and blog + Start aggregating a user mailing list where you can provide gentle updates (beta test new features on quizmathgenius, new book announcement etc)
AzironaZack 1y ago
It's cute! Well done. I enjoyed playing them. The Math Grid game can be "solved" by just clicking the increment/decrement buttons until the outline of the box turns green.
fsckboy 1y ago
the 2nd game, click the prime numbers, my second board had only a 1 as a potential candidate, and 1 is not considered prime. the other numbers were all composites and I was awarded a big fat zero for knowing all this. (I went back in and the game does not allow clicking the 1, good; but the description "divisible only by 1 and themselves" doesn't really rule it out. maybe don't give 1's or explain this) clicking the prime numbers is a bit hard to do, and they scooch out of the viewing area and disappear for a bit. not complaining but while i was figuring out the game on my first board, I did terribly because of that. given the level of math proficiency required for the prime number game, I was shocked in the next math grid game when using the ascend/descend buttons it simply told me every time I had hit the right answer. thought this was how to play so I didn't try typing numbers in. on my firefox browswer the answer numbers are too big to fit in the cells.
- bobthecowboy 1y ago
  Likewise on the prime number game, I had a board with all even numbers >2.
anonu 1y ago
nice work! But these arent that easy! What age group target was this for?
wellpast 1y ago
This is great. I've been working on a social site where the content users post and scroll through are microgames (<500kb). My kids are my biggest users so far. My daughter loves this pill sorting game, for example: https://xelly.games/game/b7eba4db-dc4b-4cfe-8420-3e42e494e520 https://xelly.games/game/b7eba4db-dc4b-4cfe-8420-3e42e494e52...
giantg2 1y ago
I have a new suggestion. A guess the number game 1-100 in 7 tries or less. It doesn’t sound smart at first because its just guessing. However, if you always guess in the middle of the upper and lower bound, then you eliminate 50% of the possibilities. It's a pretty neat trick to get kids to think about how to approach a problem that seems random in a structured way.
- nurettin 1y ago
  Agreed! As an 8th grader I felt very smart finding the minimum number of steps required to solve this binary search using logarithms. It is also a great intro to algorithmic complexity. Path finding in a 16x16 grid is also another great demonstration of BFS and DFS. Using derivatives to make a targeting system and animating the result is another cool mathematical experiment.
nurettin 1y ago
We used to play with gcompris. It has similar puzzles for many different topics like numbers, constraints, logic gates and attention. Lately I found out that it has an android port on f-droid.
ComplexSystems 1y ago
That "odd one out" game is broken - it just generated 21, 14, 35, 49 and told me the right answer was "14" because it's the only number not divisible by 7. Also the prime number game generated a set of all composite numbers.
- min2bro 1y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. I will work this weekend to fix those bugs
badmonster 1y ago
neat!

87 points by min2bro 1y ago

zakki 1y ago

I found that when no more prime number, the game still on. When I clicked non prime number game over and showed my score.

nickpsecurity 1y ago

I'll just pop in to say it's neat that you built that for your kids. The presentation is good, too.

jacobmarble 1y ago

FYI Firefox fails to load the page for me: > Secure Connection Failed > > An error occurred during a connection to quizmathgenius.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). > > Error code: SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP

stevenkkim 1y ago
Same for me.
- countrymile 1y ago
  Firefox mobile quite happy here

seidleroni 1y ago

This is really great, well done! I have two young kids and was thinking about putting something like this together and I'm delighted that you beat me to it. Having a 6yo and 8yo, it would be great if there were some more basic games as well.

getnormality 1y ago

Prime Hunter sometimes generates sets with no prime numbers.

kevinventullo 1y ago
Also, tiny nit but the text at the end says the largest known prime number has over 24 million digits. While technically true, the current largest prime number in fact has over 41 million digits! (Also, I love this. I hope you’re still hosting it once I have kids)
- jldugger 1y ago
  > the current largest prime number in fact has over 41 million digits! Because there's an infinite number of primes?
  - kevinventullo 1y ago
    *largest known :)
gjm11 1y ago
In the few games I tried, it always ended up that way. You start with a few prime numbers (if you're lucky). Each time you click on one, it gets replaced with another number that usually isn't prime. After a short while, there are no primes left and then there's nothing to do but sit and wait for the game to end. Perhaps all the numbers should have a finite lifetime, after which they evaporate and a random new one replaces them.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  Or maybe right click to identify a number as composite.
ethan_smith 1y ago
I can confirm this bug - your random number generation algorithm should ensure at least one prime appears in each set, perhaps by maintaining a pre-computed list of primes within your range and guaranteeing inclusion of at least one.

ArekDymalski 1y ago

it's really nice (both idea/purpose and execution). what would be really great is having direct URLs for each game so you can share and point your kid to specific puzzle.

pizzathyme 1y ago

Have to ask: How old are your kids? Very fun puzzles! Do they like them?

2kblater 1y ago

I did something similar for my children – very suitable for ages 3 to 5: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3355240/Teach_Kids_Games/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3355240/Teach_Kids_Games/

swah 1y ago
Leaving the web environment makes stuff like this more exciting to me - is this Unity or Godot? Would love to learn Godot but have a hard time.

jamoner 1y ago

I was trying the sum game, but there was no combination of three numbers to add up to 15. I took a screenshot if it helps.

512 1y ago

This reminds me of the Optiver internship selection process.

dskhatri 1y ago

Nice work. I like the simple, unobtrusive and ad-free interface. I have kids who could use this although you face lots of competition for their very limited allotted active screen time [1]. The 6 yo gets 45 mins a week on the computer, usually opting for PBSkids, Kodable or Scratch. The 3 yo gets 15 mins usually opting for guided digital canvas painting as she learns to use a mouse. There are a few good no-screen puzzle books for kids (lookup the ones by Usborne). As a recent publisher of an interactive children's book [2], I am seeing more sales of the physical books than the digital/web editions despite the latter having more features including an element of teaching math. Curious if you considered publishing a physical book with these concepts/math puzzles? [1] This app inspires me to upgrade some of their passive screen time (TV) to more of your and similar apps [2] https://tendollaradventure.com https://tendollaradventure.com

susiecambria 1y ago
Holiday gifts will be ordered for fam, friends, and donations. Thx for the recs.
min2bro 1y ago
Yes, I am working on a Activity book for kids based on similar kind of games which I would be publishing sometime later this year. I've published a Math Brain Teaser book back in April and yes I can see the sales going up but not significant though. I'm still learning the art of marketing. Would love to know if you've any tips for me since you being an established author Math Brain Teaser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4PBNZWF https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4PBNZWF
- dskhatri 1y ago
  I'm a debut author and not established by any means. I do have marketing experience and can provide the following suggestions: + Put all apps and books under one umbrella brand. Your book doesn't have a unique name associated with it. Little Math Genius or Little Math Whiz, for example. + Setup an umbrella website (littlemathwhiz dot com) and blog + Start aggregating a user mailing list where you can provide gentle updates (beta test new features on quizmathgenius, new book announcement etc)

AzironaZack 1y ago

It's cute! Well done. I enjoyed playing them. The Math Grid game can be "solved" by just clicking the increment/decrement buttons until the outline of the box turns green.

fsckboy 1y ago

the 2nd game, click the prime numbers, my second board had only a 1 as a potential candidate, and 1 is not considered prime. the other numbers were all composites and I was awarded a big fat zero for knowing all this. (I went back in and the game does not allow clicking the 1, good; but the description "divisible only by 1 and themselves" doesn't really rule it out. maybe don't give 1's or explain this) clicking the prime numbers is a bit hard to do, and they scooch out of the viewing area and disappear for a bit. not complaining but while i was figuring out the game on my first board, I did terribly because of that. given the level of math proficiency required for the prime number game, I was shocked in the next math grid game when using the ascend/descend buttons it simply told me every time I had hit the right answer. thought this was how to play so I didn't try typing numbers in. on my firefox browswer the answer numbers are too big to fit in the cells.

bobthecowboy 1y ago
Likewise on the prime number game, I had a board with all even numbers >2.

anonu 1y ago

nice work! But these arent that easy! What age group target was this for?

wellpast 1y ago

This is great. I've been working on a social site where the content users post and scroll through are microgames (<500kb). My kids are my biggest users so far. My daughter loves this pill sorting game, for example: https://xelly.games/game/b7eba4db-dc4b-4cfe-8420-3e42e494e520 https://xelly.games/game/b7eba4db-dc4b-4cfe-8420-3e42e494e52...

giantg2 1y ago

I have a new suggestion. A guess the number game 1-100 in 7 tries or less. It doesn’t sound smart at first because its just guessing. However, if you always guess in the middle of the upper and lower bound, then you eliminate 50% of the possibilities. It's a pretty neat trick to get kids to think about how to approach a problem that seems random in a structured way.

nurettin 1y ago
Agreed! As an 8th grader I felt very smart finding the minimum number of steps required to solve this binary search using logarithms. It is also a great intro to algorithmic complexity. Path finding in a 16x16 grid is also another great demonstration of BFS and DFS. Using derivatives to make a targeting system and animating the result is another cool mathematical experiment.

nurettin 1y ago

We used to play with gcompris. It has similar puzzles for many different topics like numbers, constraints, logic gates and attention. Lately I found out that it has an android port on f-droid.

ComplexSystems 1y ago

That "odd one out" game is broken - it just generated 21, 14, 35, 49 and told me the right answer was "14" because it's the only number not divisible by 7. Also the prime number game generated a set of all composite numbers.

min2bro 1y ago
Thanks for the feedback. I will work this weekend to fix those bugs

badmonster 1y ago

neat!