Shaka-Luli: Math & Reading

Mister Meanie's fog has put a whole seaside town to sleep, and only two bright kids can wake it up. Solve math and reading puzzles to lift the fog off sleepy creatures, relight the lighthouse beacons and bring the color back. A hand-painted storybook adventure that runs from first counting all the way to times tables.

Play as Emma, age 8, or her little brother Jonus, age 4. Each hero brings puzzles matched to their age. Emma adds and subtracts to 100, learns multiplication and division facts, explores place value and spells longer words. Jonus counts to 20, adds and takes away within 10, meets every letter and the sound it makes, and reads his first three-letter words. Choose Both of us and the heroes take turns, so two siblings can pass the phone and share one adventure.

Every puzzle is a quick, hands-on mini-game. Kids tap to count, build sums and words from number and letter tiles, match pairs, sort things into groups, flip memory cards, find the missing number, spot what comes next in a pattern and decide which is more. A speaker button reads each task aloud, and on Jonus's turns the game reads it for him, so children who are still learning to read can play on their own. Mistakes get a friendly nudge, and badges cheer on practice as well as right answers.

• 17 painted districts along an enchanted New England coast, from Bright Meadow and Tidewater Cove to Candy Bog, Mirror Marsh and the Driftwood Carnival • Dozens of fog creatures and funny-grumpy Dull Lords who wake up happy once the fog is gone • 15 lighthouse beacons to relight and Bright Shards to collect • Friends who join the team and can be called in to help, including Sili the unicorn, Marina the mermaid, Pip the elf, Sparkle the seal and Quill the bookworm • Story scenes with a Skip button for replays • Badges, fresh daily challenges and a My Progress screen where kids watch their skills grow • A final climb up the Tower of Static to out-brighten Mister Meanie himself

The story carries a gentle message too: Mister Meanie's glowing Glow-Boxes make everyone dull and sleepy, and the heroes stay bright by thinking for themselves.

Shaka-Luli is completely free, with no ads, no in-app purchases and no accounts. It works fully offline and collects no data at all. Progress is saved only on this iPhone, and the read-aloud voice uses the speech built into iOS. A Grown-ups area protected by a 4-digit PIN lets you set a daily play-time limit. When the time is used up, a Time to rest screen takes the place of the game until a grown-up raises or turns off the limit. The same area switches the music and the sound effects on or off separately, shows how to add Apple's natural Ava reading voice, shows the privacy policy, and shows each child's play time and learning progress for the week.

Discovery signals