Catchy Words AR

An incredibly simple yet unique and immersive word game made specifically with ARKit in mind.

We believe, that VR, AR and MR will change all areas of our life. Thus, with the introduction of ARKit in iOS 11, we decided to create something useful, but at the same time fun and absolutely new, an AR-tailored way to help kids learn spelling. This is how our word game “Catchy Words” came to life. The response from education community has exceeded our greatest expectations, but more on that later.

Link to the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/catchy-words/id1266039244?mt=8

Catchy Words is an incredibly simple yet unique and immersive word game made specifically with AR in mind. All you have to do is to walk around and catch the letters with your device to compose a word.

We have spent most of the time designing perfect interactions for playing the game. Most noticeably we have made a decision to avoid interaction with the screen during the gameplay. This means our players need to walk around and touch the virtual object with their actual device that acts as a connection between the virtual and the real world. This was a tough decision to make, considering everyone was trying to tap the screen, but it was worth it — this makes for a really new experience, not just an app that was converted to AR. And sadly most of the apps on the market are that way.

We have also made sure to localize the app to the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. This makes the experience great for users in the supported regions.

Feedback

Catchy Words is used in kindergartens and elementary schools in US, UK, France and many other countries. Here is some feedback from the teachers and parents:

Kingsland Academy, UK: “3KB have been experimenting with augmented reality in the hall by hunting for letters and spelling words with the Catchy Words” (https://twitter.com/KingslandTweets/status/912670822715871232).

Julie Green, UK: “My daughter loves playing Catchy Words and helps her retain spelling words.” (Direct feedback).

Brad Dale, US: “Catchy — Augmented Reality Word Game. Fun for the classroom, home, or by yourself. Just make sure to give yourself enough space” (https://twitter.com/bradjdale/status/1005781760943316992).

Jaime Donally, US: “My daughter is dyslexic. She’s struggles with spelling & when using Catchy Words she’s able to retain the word. It’s challenging but fun & the physical activity helps her make the connections she needs for her learning style.” (https://twitter.com/JaimeDonally/status/988209320339927041).

App Store review, IT: “Colourful game Great sound effects Difficult to burst bubble until u get the hang of it.When the bubble bursts it is difficult to catch the letters as some of them are too high to reach from a wheelchair”.

Nathalie Laroche, FR: “Utiliser la réalité augmentée pour étudier les mots de vocabulaire. Voilà qui est amusant et stimulant avec l’application” (https://twitter.com/Nath_Lar/status/981309362454106112).

Catchy Words was created within a reasonably short timeframe — about 2,5 month. We wanted to submit the app for iOS 11 release and validate the idea itself. Instead of letting ideas float around, we have put those ideas to work and strive to ship them fast. Now we can tell, that there is a demand for such experiences, especially in education.

Catchy is featured by Apple as one of the amazing AR game in the UK App Store.

Made with ♥ by Gleb Revkov & Vladislav Simanovich.