Browser games for the Phunics reading programme

The client

Phunics is a phonics reading programme from USA English, online and in print. It teaches children to read through stories, each one built around a single sound or reading skill, in story sets such as Aesop's Fables and Zodiac.

What we built

Working in close collaboration with Toby Johnson and Victoria Tang across 2024 and 2025, we developed browser-based games that help children learn English words and the sounds inside them. There are five, each with its own theme and its own way of practising words, and they share the look of the story worlds they sit beside: one is set in Aesop's Fables, another in the Zodiac stories.

The five games

1. Family Fun — word families. The child hears a word family, such as "_at", picks the egg that belongs to it, then tosses it with the right power into the word-family house. Six words fill the house and the level is done. The game design document pointed to one of our own spelling games, Pirate Defense, as the model for the mechanic.
2. A spy game. Detective animals hide in manholes.
3. Aesop's Fables, Ancient Greece. The child hears a word and picks the stone that carries it. The bird drops it into the urn at the right moment, and the water rises until it can drink.
4. A carnival game. Aim a slingshot at the balloons.
5. Zodiac. Help May the Monkey find the zodiac animals who are lost on their way to a reunion dinner: click the hiding place with the right word, and after five rounds they sail to the party.

One game, many word lists

The first game is data-driven. A single JSON file lists the word families, the words, the pictures and the audio, so new families are added by supplying files, not by changing code — which is how a series of levels grows without a rebuild each time.

Built with the client, in review

Each game went through repeated review builds shared on private links, with the client's feedback folded into the next version — dozens of builds across the five games.

See Phunics →