Insights
Building digital products for children
Designing for children is its own discipline — gentle, safe and joyful by default. Gamify Growth has shipped children's products that reach hundreds of thousands and run for years — on iOS and Android, on Amazon Kids+, and as AR experiences in stores and theme parks.
Designing for kids is different
Children are not small adults. Products for ages 2 to 8 need gentle, zero-penalty design, simple navigation, and content that is safe, age-appropriate and supervised. The goal is delight and learning, never frustration or pressure.
MaxiMundo — a gentle world for ages 2 to 5
Built end-to-end for Dr. Max, MaxiMundo is a zero-penalty game grounded in Françoise Dolto's principles: four worlds, nine mini-games and thirty-six original songs. It has just launched — June 1, 2026, on iOS and Android across six countries, covered by national TV, with a launch event where Maxi's world was rebuilt for thousands of children — and is backed by a 24-month live-ops partnership.
Watch the TV spot → · App Store ↗ · Google Play ↗
Learning and wonder: Space Academy and Yummy Galaxy for Dr. Leahu
Developed for the Dr. Leahu dental clinics (now Regina Maria), Yummy Galaxy has been live for five years and played by 200,000+ children: the clinics' friendly tooth mascot guides kids through galaxies of food characters, teaching healthy eating and dental habits through educational mini-games for ages 6 to 10. Longevity like that is the real test of a kids product: it has to stay safe, fresh and loved long after launch.
For the same client, Space Academy made the children's locations the first dental clinics with a built-in gamification system: digital games for every age group in the waiting rooms, a full-body motion simulator, collectible badges earned for brushing and regular check-ups, and an online portal that continues the adventure at home.
Read the Space Academy launch coverage on IQads → · Watch the Space Academy video →
ARPO on Amazon Kids+ — play without words
For ARPO, the robot babysitter from the global YouTube series, we turned the show into a game for ages 3 to 7 on Amazon Kids+ — running on Fire tablets, Kindle and Echo devices. The adventures use zero dialogue and zero on-screen text, so a child anywhere in the world can play them in any language. Designing without words is a discipline of its own: every goal, reward and emotion has to be readable from motion, sound and character alone.
Bringing dinosaurs to life: Magic Window and an AR app at Dino Parc
Magic Window is the in-park installation that has been bringing dinosaurs to life on screen for ten years, with 1M+ interactions — a digital window where prehistoric giants step into the real scene around the visitors.
The AR mobile app lets visitors take five friendly dinosaurs — Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Hatzegopteryx and Triceratops — into the real world, filming and sharing their own encounters.
Watch the AR app → · App Store ↗ · Google Play ↗
And the park’s most famous resident arrived even earlier: Benji the Allosaurus — a sensory storytelling box we built for Carrefour’s autumn 2018 campaign, with Arduino, 3D, smoke, water spray and light play. Visitors stepped inside, the dinosaur woke up, dinner went wrong, and everyone walked out with a story — 11,000 likes in three days at ParkLake. It proved so popular that in March 2019 Benji moved to Dino Parc Râșnov, where it kept delighting children for years.
Watch Benji the Allosaurus → · Read the case study on IQads → · Benji’s move to Dino Parc (IQads) →
Products that teach: Bit&R and Wiggy Piggy
Most of the work above lives inside a brand's world. Bit&R and Wiggy Piggy are different — standalone products the studio built for other founders, with their own users. Bit&R is a platform where kids aged 10 to 14 build and share their own games while learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript — designed by our co-founder Costin and selected for the Alpha USA Startups accelerator.
bitandr.com ↗ · Bit&R, on Rubik Hub →
Wiggy Piggy was hardware — a Bluetooth-connected piggy bank that taught kids to earn: parents set tasks in the app, kids earned toward their goals, and the piggy spoke, shook and lit up along the way; it sold for years before being retired. A product that has to live on its own merits is the hardest test of children's design: the fun has to survive the learning.
What we have learned
Across these products, the constants are the same: zero-penalty design, supervised and age-appropriate content, original music and characters, and live ops to keep the world growing. That is how a children's product earns years of trust from kids and parents alike.
FAQ
What ages do you design children's products for?
Primarily ages 2 to 8, with design tailored to each stage — for example MaxiMundo is built for ages 2 to 5.
How do you keep children's content safe?
With zero-penalty design, age-appropriate and supervised content, and original characters and music — no pressure mechanics.
What platforms do you build children's products for?
iOS and Android, Amazon Kids+ (Fire, Kindle and Echo), the web, and physical spaces — AR installations and in-store hardware for retail and theme parks.