Questions and answers

Open the app and tap the big green button on the title screen. The first time, Little Explorers asks three quick things: pick an explorer, type a name (optional) and tap an age (optional). Then the map opens on the land that fits your child’s age, and they tap any postcard to play.

On later launches it goes straight from the title screen to the map.

No. Tap Skip on the name screen and the narrator will call your child “explorer” instead. If you do type one, a first name or a nickname is plenty. The name keyboard is a big set of letter tiles, not the phone keyboard, and each letter is spoken as it’s tapped; names can be up to 12 letters.

The name is stored only on the device and is never sent anywhere.

Three things: the narrator says it now and then (“Great job, Mia!”, “Level up! Well done, Mia!”); it appears under the explorer at the top left of the map; and two letter games use it — Letter Trail adds a level for tracing it (names up to 8 letters), and level 8 of Sky Pilot spells it in the clouds. If no name was typed, Sky Pilot uses the explorer’s name instead.

Only to decide where the map opens. Ages 2–3 start in Tiny Tots, 4–6 in Create Land, 7–9 in Brain Academy and 10–12 in Genius Lab. Nothing is ever locked because of the age, and you can skip the question. You can change it later in the grown-ups area.

Five guide characters: Mia, Leo, Zara, Max and Bolt the robot. The chosen explorer walks along the map to each game you tap, cheers when a round is won, appears in the corner of the map and rides the rocket in Space Trip. Choosing one is just for fun — they all play the same.

Tap the round explorer picture (or the name under it) at the top left of the map. That opens “Who is exploring today?” again; tap a different explorer and carry on. Progress isn’t affected.

The name can only be typed again after Reset progress in the grown-ups area, which also clears stars, stickers and levels. If you just want a different explorer, change that from the map instead — no reset needed.

Scroll sideways through the lands, or tap one of the seven land tabs along the bottom to jump. Each game is a postcard on a winding path; tapping one makes the explorer walk there and the game opens. Tapping a land’s gate plays its welcome, and lots of the scenery reacts to taps — ducks quack, blocks say their letters, a rocket counts down.

Games are built from short rounds — most take well under a minute — and they never end by themselves: after each win a new round starts. Your child can leave at any moment with the Home button (or the Android back button) and nothing is lost.

Tiny Tots 2–3 · Create Land, Letter Land, Number Land and Discovery Bay 3–7 · Brain Academy 6–10 · Genius Lab 10–12. The ranges overlap on purpose, because children don’t move up neatly on their birthdays.

Yes. Every land is open to everyone from the very first launch. A confident five-year-old can try Brain Academy, and a ten-year-old can enjoy Paint Studio or Music Band. If a game feels too hard, tap the level badge and pick an earlier level, or try a younger land.

Tiny Tots is made for exactly that age: giant targets, one-step actions, a few words of narration, a helping hand after about four seconds, and no way to fail. We still recommend a grown-up nearby, and the daily play-time limit if you want screen time capped.

Genius Lab: nonograms up to 10×10, solving equations with a balance scale, 61 countries’ flags and capitals, word searches up to 12×12, tangrams, circuits and logic gates (AND, OR, NOT, XOR…), mental maths up to primes, percentages and negative numbers, slide puzzles to 5×5 and Mastermind-style code breaking — 12 or 13 levels each.

Anyone can enjoy it, but the app is designed and rated for children under 13, so everything — voice, pace, rewards — is pitched at ages 2 to 12.

Ages 4–6 start at Create Land, the first of the four 3–7 lands (Create, Letters, Numbers, Discover). Letter Land, Number Land and Discovery Bay are just a scroll or a tab away.

Something nice, always. Tiny Tots has no failure states: a wrong tap gets a giggle, a sound or a little surprise (Peekaboo hides butterflies and balls in the empty spots), and the helping hand shows the right move after about four seconds. Every finished round earns three stars.

Nine: Bubble Fun, Peekaboo, Animal Sounds, Magic Sky, Feed the Babies, Bath Time, Shape Sorter, Grow a Garden and Beep Beep Cars. Each has five levels, and every level is a new scene — see the Tiny Tots guide.

Magic Sky has no right or wrong answers at all: every tap places a smiling star with a chime, dragging paints a rainbow trail, and after eight stars they join into a constellation. Bubble Fun is close behind — every touch pops or blows a bubble.

In an in-app gallery called “My Gallery”, opened from inside Paint Studio; it shows the newest 12. Saved pages from Magic Colouring go there too. They are stored only in the app’s private storage — not in the phone’s photo library — so they can’t be shared out of the app, and they are deleted if the app is uninstalled.

Not one by one in this version. Paintings are removed when the app is uninstalled. (Reset progress doesn’t remove them.)

Paint with 32 named colours and nine tools — brush, crayon, pencil, rainbow brush, glitter, spray paint, 16 picture stamps, paint bucket and eraser — in three sizes. Mirror and kaleidoscope modes make it symmetrical; undo steps back up to 12 times; clear needs two taps. The full lists are in the almanac.

No — they are pure free play, with nothing to win or get wrong. Music Band (8 levels), Colour Lab (10) and Jigsaw Fun (10) are the Create Land games with level ladders.

Letter Land focuses on letter names, shapes and order (“big A”, “little a”), with one first-sound level in Bubble Pop ABC (pick the letter a picture starts with). For phonics with letter sounds, try Word Wizard in Brain Academy, whose prompts use sounds such as “kuh” and “buh”.

Yes. Each letter is traced in school stroke order and direction, starting at a green dot, with a ladybug following the finger. Straying too far restarts that stroke, which gently enforces the correct path. Capitals come first (A–Z in five groups), then small letters on four-line handwriting paper.

Yes, if a name was typed on first launch: Letter Trail adds an extra “my name” level (up to 8 letters), ending with “You wrote your name!”.

Yes — every letter tile matches its box’s colour, so early levels can be solved by matching colours and shapes. Later levels remove the colour hints and lengthen the words, up to seven letters.

Bug Garden counts from 1–3 on level 1 up to 10–20 on level 10; Dot to Dot joins up to 20 dots, counts in twos and counts down from 10; Hungry Monster counts to ten, then adds, takes away, makes ten and shares.

No. Customers pay in plain “coins” worth one each (prices of one or two coins, and change from five), so the game works the same everywhere. Coin Shop in Brain Academy adds coins worth 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20.

Repeating patterns (AB, AAB, ABB, ABC, AABB), patterns of shape and colour, growing dot patterns and number trains that count up, in twos or down — ten levels in all.

The eight planets, their order from the Sun, one fact each (Mercury is closest to the Sun, Venus is hottest, Mars is the red planet, Jupiter is biggest, Saturn has big rings…) and three moon shapes. Level 8 is a quiz on exactly those facts. All of it is in the almanac.

Friendly shape characters show happy, sad, angry, scared and surprised (and later sleepy, silly and proud). Children name feelings, hear short stories and say how a friend feels, build faces, and choose kind actions like a hug or sharing. Each feeling gets a simple explanation, such as “Angry means you feel cross and grumpy. A big breath helps!”

Yes, gently: traffic lights (“Red means stop. Green means go!”), crossing on the green man (“Look left, look right… and walk!”), road signs (stop, crossing, parking, school) plus parking by colour and number and lining cars up in order.

Math Rocket: adding and taking away within 10 and 20, doubles and halves, adding tens, missing numbers, two-digit sums without carrying and the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Pizza Fractions: halves to eighths, equivalence, comparing and adding fractions. Coin Shop: coin values, fewest coins, change and budgeting. Clock Tower: telling the time.

From o’clock to half past, quarter past and to, and five-minute times, then matching digital to analogue, one hour later, morning or evening, and how long something takes. Children both read the clock and set it by dragging the hands.

It teaches the core ideas of programming without any typing: build a sequence of commands, run it, see where it goes wrong, fix it. Levels add turns, obstacles, multiple targets, loops (repeat twice or three times) and a jump block. Every board is checked by a solver, so it can always be solved.

In Brain Academy, stars count mistakes in the round: none earns three, one or two earn two, three or more earn one. A finished round always earns at least one star, and the level still counts towards unlocking the next one.

No countdowns and no fail timers in any game. In Number Ninja the number orbs hover for a few seconds and then drift away — but they simply come back (“They got away. Here they come again.”) and missed orbs never count against the player.

61, with their flags, capitals, continents and one fun fact each, across six question types including sorting flags by continent and true-or-false facts. Every country is listed in the almanac.

A lime pin means right colour, right spot; amber means right colour, wrong spot. Before each guess, check it fits every earlier clue — and a guess with no pins rules out every colour in it. If all eight guesses run out, the code is shown, a star is still earned, and the level can be tried again.

Closed and open circuits, switches, series and parallel circuits (and why bulbs in series glow dimmer), short circuits, motors and buzzers, and logic gates: AND as switches in series, OR as switches in parallel, then NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR and XNOR on truth tables.

In most games, by winning two rounds at the current level; a big “Level up!” celebration plays and the next level opens. In Genius Lab, finishing a round moves straight up. Bug Garden asks for three wins from level 3, and Music Band moves on after each song. Levels never go down.

Tap the level badge in the game’s top bar — the star with a number and a row of dots. “Pick a level!” shows every level: reached ones can be replayed, later ones show a padlock (“Keep playing to unlock it!”).

No — levels unlock by playing, so each one builds on the last. If the early levels are too easy, two quick wins at each will move your child up fast.

432 in all: five in each Tiny Tots game, ten in nearly every game for ages 3–10, and 12 or 13 in each Genius Lab game. Paint Studio, Magic Colouring and Monster Maker are free play with no levels. Letter Trail adds one more for the child’s name.

The game carries on at the top level with fresh rounds — new pictures, new numbers, new mazes.

Most games: no mistakes earns three stars, one or two mistakes earn two, more earn one. Tiny Tots always gives three. Memory Match counts card flips, Slide Puzzle counts moves, Code Breaker counts guesses against a par, and Word Search forgives one stray drag. Free-play games give small bonus stars (saving a painting, making a monster dance).

Stars unlock stickers: the first after the very first star, then a new one every three stars — 50 in all (so the last needs 148 stars). The purple book at the top right of the map opens “My Sticker Book”, and a red “!” on it means a new sticker is waiting. All 50 are in the almanac.

Once a day a speckled egg with a “Surprise!” tag appears next to the explorer at the top of the map. Tap it and it wiggles, cracks and hatches an animal; the narrator names it and shares a fact, and it’s worth a bonus star. A new one appears the next calendar day.

Yes. The app keeps one set of progress per device — one star counter, one sticker book, one explorer and name — while each game remembers its own level. If siblings want separate progress, separate devices are the only way.

The first three times each game is played, it demonstrates the next move straight away. After that it waits, and appears when your child has made no progress for a moment — about 4 seconds in Tiny Tots, 6.5 in most games and 14 in Genius Lab — or right after a mistake. It disappears as soon as they do something right.

There’s no switch for the hand, because it only shows up when it’s needed. If your child would rather work it out, just encourage them to try before the pause runs out — in Genius Lab that’s about 14 seconds.

Yes. Every game starts with a spoken instruction, and the speaker button in the top bar repeats it. Instructions also appear as captions. Numbers 1–10 and some praise use a recorded voice; everything else uses the device’s own text-to-speech.

English, using the device’s built-in US English voice. The app isn’t translated into other languages yet.

Yes — switch Talking voice to OFF in the grown-ups area. Captions keep showing what the narrator would say.

A soft sound, a little shake, a line of encouragement (“Almost! Have another go.”) and usually a hint. There are no lives, no buzzers and nothing is taken away.

Tap the small grown-up button at the bottom right of the map. A parental gate shows three numbers written as words — for example SEVEN · TWO · FIVE — and you type them on the keypad (7, 2, 5). A wrong code shakes and clears; a new code is drawn every time.

It is designed to stop pre-readers: the numbers are written as words, and the code changes every time. An older child who reads well could solve it, so for purchases we also recommend the store’s own protection — Ask to Buy on Apple, or purchase approval in Google Play.

Switches for Sound effects, Music and Talking voice; the daily play time limit; the child’s age; Reset progress; the one-time purchase with Restore purchases; and a short “About Little Explorers” note with privacy information and credits.

The child’s name and age, the chosen explorer, all stars and stickers, every game’s level and the daily time limit. It keeps the sound, music and voice settings and any purchase. Saved paintings stay in the gallery. You tap it twice (“Tap again to reset”) so it can’t happen by accident, and it can’t be undone.

Yes — the three switches are independent. Many families keep sound effects and the voice on but switch the background music off.

Art and sound effects are from Kenney.nl and the music from OpenGameArt.org artists, all CC0. Fonts are Fredoka (SIL Open Font License) and Luckiest Guy (Apache 2.0). Extra pictures are drawn in code and the instruments are synthesised.

Grown-ups area → Daily play time → choose Off, 15m, 30m, 45m or 60m. The highlighted button is the current setting.

Only time spent inside games. Browsing the map, the sticker book and the grown-ups area don’t count. The total starts again from zero each calendar day.

Play stops with a calm night-time screen — a sleepy owl and “Time for a break! Great exploring today. See you next time!” The only button on it is the grown-up button, behind the parental gate.

Tap the grown-up button on the break screen, pass the gate, and pick a longer limit or Off in the grown-ups area. Changing the limit lets play continue straight away.

Yes — the time played today is saved on the device, so closing and reopening the app doesn’t reset it. (Reset progress does clear the limit setting itself.)

Android: every game is free, with an occasional child-safe ad when leaving a game. iPhone and iPad: free to download with no ads; the first two games in every land are free, and the rest unlock with one purchase.

$4.99 (shown in your local currency), once. It’s a permanent, non-consumable purchase processed by Google Play: ads stop immediately and never come back on that Google account.

$4.99 (shown in your local currency), once, processed by Apple. It opens every locked game in every land, for good, and it is shared with everyone in your Apple Family Sharing group. The iOS version never shows ads either way.

The first two in each land: Bubble Fun and Peekaboo (Tiny Tots), Paint Studio and Magic Colouring (Create), Letter Trail and Bubble Pop ABC (Letters), Bug Garden and Hungry Monster (Numbers), Ocean Dive and Space Trip (Discover), Math Rocket and Clock Tower (Brain Academy), Pixel Logic and Equation Lab (Genius Lab).

No. There is exactly one optional purchase per platform. Nothing inside a game ever asks for money — no coins, gems, lives, boosters or loot boxes.

Grown-ups area → Restore purchases, signed in to the same Google Play account or Apple ID that bought it. It says “Restored – thank you!” when it finds it, or “Nothing to restore” if that account hasn’t bought it. The app also re-checks with the store at every launch.

No. Google Play and the App Store are separate stores with separate products: Android sells “Remove ads” and iOS sells “Unlock all games”. A purchase works on every device signed in to the store account that made it — and on iOS, on your Family Sharing group’s devices too.

On iPhone and iPad, yes. “Unlock all games” supports Apple Family Sharing, so one purchase unlocks every game for everyone in your Family Sharing group. Family members just open Little Explorers on their own iPhone or iPad — if the games don’t unlock straight away, they tap Restore purchases in the grown-ups area.

On Android, Google Play doesn’t share in-app purchases through Family Library, so “Remove ads” applies to the Google account that bought it.

That’s Apple’s Ask to Buy (or Google Play purchase approval). The request goes to the organiser; once approved, the purchase completes by itself. Nothing is charged or unlocked until then.

Payments are taken by Google or Apple, so refunds go through them: on Android via Google Play’s order history, on iOS at reportaproblem.apple.com. If you get stuck, support@horizongames.live and we’ll help.

Every purchase button sits behind the parental gate, and the store then asks for its own confirmation (password, fingerprint or face). For extra safety, turn on purchase approval in Google Play or Screen Time.

No. The iOS version contains no ads and no advertising code at all.

Only at a natural break — when your child leaves a game for the map. Never during play, never as a reward, not until about a minute and a half of play, and at most once every four minutes. The app’s music and voice pause while an ad is showing.

Google AdMob, a Google Play Families-certified ad network. Every request is tagged child-directed and under the age of consent, limited to G-rated (general audience) content, with sensitive categories blocked. Ads are non-personalised, and the app has the advertising-ID permission removed.

Grown-ups area → Remove ads ($4.99, once). It also appears as “Ads removed – thank you!” once bought.

No — an ad needs the internet, so with no connection there are simply no ads. The games themselves never need the internet.

Please email support@horizongames.live with what the ad was for and roughly when you saw it. We can block advertisers and categories in AdMob.

None. No accounts, sign-in, chat, analytics or tracking, and no access to the camera, microphone, location or contacts. We never ask for an email address or photo. On Android, Google AdMob receives the technical information needed to deliver a child-directed, non-personalised ad. Full details are in the privacy policy.

Only in the app’s private storage on the device, together with progress, settings and saved paintings. None of it ever leaves the device, and we cannot see it.

We designed it to comply with COPPA (US), the children’s provisions of the GDPR (EU/UK, “GDPR-K”), and the Apple Kids Category and Google Play Families policies — chiefly by not collecting personal information at all.

Use Reset progress to clear the name, age and progress, or uninstall the app to remove everything including paintings. We hold nothing on our side — except emails you send us, which we delete on request.

No. The app has no microphone access. Speech goes only one way: the device’s on-device text-to-speech reads the instructions aloud.

No links for children to tap. Anything that leaves the app or spends money is behind the parental gate.

Yes — every game works fully offline. The internet is only needed for the store (to buy or restore) and, on Android, ads.

Android phones and tablets (Google Play) and iPhone and iPad (App Store). It plays in landscape and lays itself out for anything from a wide phone to a 4:3 iPad.

1. Grown-ups area → check Talking voice is ON.
2. Turn up the media volume.
3. iPhone/iPad: switch off Silent mode — the app follows it.
4. Android: Settings → search “Text-to-speech” → choose an engine (for example Speech Services by Google) and install English (United States) voice data.
5. iPhone/iPad: Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices → English, and download a voice.
6. Close the app fully and reopen it.

Captions keep working either way.

Check Sound effects and Music are ON in the grown-ups area, the media volume is up and, on iOS, Silent mode is off. Then close and reopen the app.

Inside a game it goes back to the map (the same as the Home button). On other screens it steps back one screen.

No — with no accounts, progress lives only on the device that played it. Purchases do move: use Restore purchases on the new device.

Yes. Uninstalling deletes everything the app stored, including stars, stickers, levels and paintings. Purchases can be restored afterwards.

Close the app completely and reopen it; if that doesn’t help, restart the device and check the store for an update. Still wrong? Email support@horizongames.live with the device model, the game and level, and what happened.