Dedicated iPad Go Apps For A Young Child

[hyperpape]

Recently, my daughter (almost 4) has been getting out the iPad and asking me to play. Her concentration has gotten better, and she seems to have more fully internalized the rules (well, capturing and alternating play, no scoring).

I wonder if there are any iPad apps that would work nicely for her to use on her own. The trick is that they need dedicated functionality: she can navigate menus on the iPad, but I don't think she's reading, so she's not going to set up a game in Smartgo Kifu. And if I get her a problem app, it needs good feedback and very simple problems: we haven't talked about life and death beyond capture.

If there were something like the old igowin for windows, that auto-adjusts handicaps down to 5 stones on a 9x9 board, that would be awesome.

A last requirement: I got an original iPad, so it would have to be something that works with iOS 5.

[Boidhre]

What my kids have played (mainly the boy from the age of six, but my daughter at 3 likes them a lot)

Mainly: Champion Go (Same developer as Crazy Stone one of the strongest PC go engines). Note: Even difficulty 1 on 9x9 is tough for a beginner, they will lose a lot without giving a silly handicap. This is both good and bad, after a while my son was giving me lectures on the importance of losing in order to get better at a game which was nice to hear.

Others:

SmartGo Kifu: The boy enjoyed playing against the engine. It's a lot weaker than the one in Champion Go and more approachable. Also there are problems, he did them occasionally but preferred to play instead.
4x4GoPuzzle: 4x4 Go Puzzles for kids, ranging from trivial to quite interesting for an sdk. It has cutesy themes and music if they like that or (if like the boy) plain go looking themes if they don't.


The rest, he's looked at them (various tsumego ones mostly) but none ever became regular favourites. I hope the above is useful.

[lobotommy]

EasyGo app has a great package of tsumego for beginners. I use it to teach kids 4-6 y.o. It is a very good compilation raging from easy one-move-atari problems to regular tsumego problems.

I highly recommend tsumego based training when teaching kids over playing games. When you play there is always a loser and a winner. While doing problems a kid is always a winner and it is much more satisfying for him/her than just a game.
In a past year I was teaching kids almost daily so I have a vast experience in this field.

https://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/easygo/id492566615?mt=8

Also, a LevelUp series from Baduktopia is an excellent tool for teaching kids. I have not found anything better than these books.

[RBerenguel]

I agree with the Cho U 4x4 problem app. I have it (without the cutesy graphics activated ) and the problems range from ideal for 0-day beginners until well into SDK land

[hyperpape]

When I opened the story mode, my first thought was that she'd be bored senseless by the dialogue, but she gets excited to do the story from the beginning, even without me reading it to her.

Conversation today:
"Can you get me the iPad?"
"I think you've played enough on it today."
"I just want to play the cat go game."
...clever girl.