Thinking about this some more, I think the UI should really be more about marking the selected cats than counting them. Then there could be nice diagnostics saying "you missed these ones", or "you marked this one which is X but not Y".

I think that would be a different game (or puzzle, or whatever you call this), and a dumbed down one. Maybe better referred to as "one that is aimed at younger kids."

Taking away the counting is reducing the thinking they have to do. If that's your goal, ok, but I personally think the counting, while mixed in with the "set logic" part, is an important component.

I could agree that you could have two modes, where that is one of them.

I don't have kids myself, but based on the 2-4 year olds in my family I would say that the logical reasoning part would be the challenging bit, not the counting of the solutions. I agree of course that marking and counting is strictly more work than marking only, but I disagree that the counting bit is somehow essential to this game.

You could also do both: circle the cats to indicate that they meet the condition but then you have to count your circles and press the corresponding number button so you still have to do the counting (but not the memorising). This means you're less likely to make a mistake due to forgetting to count a correctly identified cat.

Aimed at younger than 2-4?

Do you think that the age range of 2-4 implies that it becomes appropriate exactly on their second birthday, and becomes no longer appropriate right on their fifth?

I would assume that the range has blurry boundaries. And yes, I think it would shift it lower if you remove the counting element. I have no doubt that my own daughter, when aged 2.5 years old, would have struggled with it a lot more with the counting, than without. When she was 4.5 years old, she would have been a lot more bored with it if it didn't have the counting.

I suppose there are other ways of putting it as well. I used "dumbed down" first, but that could be interpreted badly, like "appropriate for dumber kids", when I really mean "younger".

But the point remains, you make it less challenging, make it take less cognitive effort, decrease its learning benefit, etc if you simplify it by removing the need to count and make it so the child only has to touch objects.

I disagree with the number arrangement bit. I'd imagine kids are learning to use the keyboard whilst using a computer's browse. 0 placement is on point with what's in front of them.

That’s assuming they use a computing device with a hardware keyboard. Since the game is pretty hard as it is, and not really about teaching to use keyboards, I would hunch >90% of 2-4 year olds playing this would use a touchscreen.

That's an interesting point. I still prefer zero on the right (and remember, they'll see them laid out that way in lots of other contexts, such as preschool worksheets).

I was going to suggest they add a feature to make it accept numbers entered via the the keyboard, but I figured I should check first if they've already done so. They did. :)

Sure, but you wouldn't teach them the alphabet starting with 'q'.

The list on the index page starts with 0, if nothing else it would be more consistent to start the counting section with 0 as well (FWIW I agree with the OP, I'm teaching my toddler to count starting with 0).

I'm the OP, and if by counting from 0 you mean "how many apples are there? Let's count 0, 1, 2, 3", then that's not what I meant and not an educational approach I necessarily agree with.

All I meant was what I said: If you're presenting numbers according to "numeric order, but with a weird exception due to the history of typewriters, which BTW your children have never heard of", then it would be simpler to remove that one weird exception. Or, to put it simpler: 0 is less than 1.

Wait I'm confused. You are teaching them to count the first item as "zero"? So if there are 3 apples, you have them say "zero, one, two"?

(FYI, I wasn't defending the zero on the right decision, I would prefer zero on the left)

> So if there are 3 apples, you have them say "zero, one, two"?

Well yes, except they'd count to three still because they're starting on 0 and increase that with each apple.

Preschool worksheets have pictures of computer keyboards on them? Why would they list the numbers from 0 to 9 with 0 on the right? Do you have an example of what you mean?

Completely agree. My 4 year old had zero (pun intended) issue playing this up to level 5 just now (using keyboard and mouse on my PC) and absolutely loved the entire thing.

The first 2 items are fixed, thanks for the feedback!