Basic Skills Agency

The Basic Skills Agency commissioned Enigma to create two online children’s games as part of their Read a Million Words in Wales project. The brief was to create two games that would encourage children (especially reluctant and failing readers) to read and ‘collect’ words to add to their word count whilst also being great fun and a bit addictive!  The games are aimed at children aged 6 – 11 years (but with a reading age of 4 – 9 years).

The Enigma gang got together and came up with two cracking ideas: Greedy Gareth the Hungry Frog is a very rude little amphibian who catches and ‘eats’ words with his long sticky tongue, and he’ll throw up if he eats the wrong one! The Dragon’s Nest is essentially the well known ‘matching pairs’ game but with a twist or two! Each game features a reward certificate which allows children to create and dress a character, then print it out along with their name, game level reached and word count achieved. Both games are beautifully illustrated and animated and have been well received by children and adults alike (one woman is up to level 120 on the Dragon’s Nest!).

So as to encourage success for everyone, the games do not focus on reading ability but rather on the game-play itself. To this end, there are 6 reading levels which are automatically adjusted to suit the capability of the player as the game is being played, so children are reading as an integral part of the games without having to think about it – and having fun at the same time. Both games are dual language (Welsh and English) and include Welsh and English voice-over audio.