ABCya Games describes itself as “the best educational platform for kids and teachers”. Its creator, public school teacher Alan Tortolani, developed ABCya in 2004 by envisioning his very own students. When it was first released, the application was took the ABCya.com domain since, as per Tortolani, it can be recognized and keyed by children. ABCya is currently playable via its website and as a mobile device program. ABCya is also offered in over 150 states around the globe.
Basically, the overall goal of ABCya is “edutainment” - educating children in such a way that entertains them. There are two things that ABCya, as a software, has always considered before and during its continuous development. First, children have relatively low attention spans; they either easily get distracted or bored. Secondly, the day to day activities of kids should continually involve learning. These factors were brought together and capitalized on by ABCya. The result is a well-rounded tool for children, parents, and teachers that effectively tickle the minds of its young users while also captivating their attention.
ABCya is not a single game. ABCya is essentially a medium for 250 uniquely assembled games that enables several options for its young users while also trying to keep children away from boredom, a typical problem of both parents and teachers. Moreover, every month there are additional new games so that its young users will never get bored of. Children are free to choose what games they like playing more while parents and teachers get to learn what their children and students are truly interested in.
Because ABCya combines learning and enjoyment, several features that builds it up into a good “edutainment” platform is also included. There are grade level segregation for all its games to ensure age appropriateness of each and every content. You will find eight groups in total, starting from pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, and lastly, grade 6. Of course, the games increase in difficulty as one progresses by grade. An instance would be grade 1 games being easy to understand in a play style point of view while games from higher grades are definitely more complicated with problem solving matters and even contains quite particular topics like aviary.
Also, one of ABCya’s most prominent features is that the games have a very wide variety. The options can go from knowledge-based themes like mathematics to more skill type games like ABCya Animate or artistic apps like ABCya Paint. This genre division enforces the sign of variance that ABCya wants to maintain.
ABCya’s main audience is undoubtedly children, however it has brought into consideration all the stakeholders that are involved with the learning process of a child. ABCya’s most reliable feature, however, is how it has fully conjoined fun with learning and improvement of skills even if they have not yet fully realized it.