Czech dads built Manabies, a game that makes kids love math

The Brno studio Veska Games has released Manabies, a free mobile game that hides school mathematics inside its gameplay so cleverly that children end up wanting to learn on their own. The project has already attracted investment from the head of the billion-crown gaming company SCS Software, along with support from experts at Stanford and Charles University.

The idea grew out of personal experience: a team of developer dads couldn't find educational games their own children would keep coming back to. “As parents, we really struggled to find learning games our kids would stick with and return to,” Jaromír Steinar of Veska Games told CzechCrunch.

Manabies' key trick is that the math isn't bolted on as an afterthought — it's built directly into the gameplay mechanics. The developers turned classic teaching aids, like a multiplication table or a fraction wheel, into “weapons” players wield during adventure missions. Every battle represents a solved problem, and on average young players work through more than 700 problems a week.

The project is aimed not only at home use but also as a teaching tool for schools. Its academic advisers include Petr Johanes, who has taught courses on education and technology at Stanford University, and Antonín Jančařík, dean of the Faculty of Education at Charles University and a specialist in technology in math education.

The studio's founders are Jakub Doucek, one of the people behind CGE Digital (video game adaptations of the Czech board-game hits Galaxy Trucker and Krycí jména), and Jakub Stránský, creator of the interactive learning project Techambition. The team also includes Vojtěch Struhár from the Grip game studio, along with artists Jaromír Steinar, who has worked for the billion-crown SCS Software, and Michal Široký, both known as the creators of the children's bestseller “Medvěd Vrr”.

Investment in Veska Games came from Pavel Šebor, founder and head of SCS Software, and Vlaada Chvátil, a Czech game-design luminary and co-owner of the board-game publisher CGE. Besides private funding, the development has also been backed by the CzechInvest program. “Altogether, we expect the first two years of developing Manabies to cost around ten million crowns,” says Steinar, adding that the team plans to keep developing the game further while keeping it free and ad-free for children around the world.