4 ms·

Show HN: Weather and Clock app for Kids

17 points by speeder 14y ago

gadders 14y ago
I was at my daughter's end of term assembly last week, and a younger sibling from another family was getting tetchy. I had your Matroska (sp?) game on my phone and she loved it, and I got to hear the assembly :-)
- speeder 14y ago
  Thanks :) Right now we got suddenly bogged by OEM work (ie: some manufacturers want to ship our apps on their stuff), but as soon as we finish that we will release a new version of the Matryoshka (with 9 dolls instead of 3, plus a challenge mode of sorts).
tjansen 14y ago
First thought: Looks great, artwork is fantastic. Second thought: I don't have kids and maybe I don't have a clue, but I wonder whether kids will understand it, especially the concept of numeric temperatures. What age group are you aiming this at? I could imagine that for kids it would be more valuable to explain the weather ("It's gonna snow", "Warm enough for T-Shirts", "Don't forget your umbrella"...). Or maybe explain the numbers ("temperature is in the high 90s - that means that it's so hot your going to sweat").
- speeder 14y ago
  It shows the weather in the window, and graphics change (for example if it is raining the character grabs a umbrella). Also if you tap any text, speech happen. The purpose of this is teach kids the meaning of the numbers on this context. This is why it has two clocks too (one analog and one digital)
LVB 14y ago
Here's one data point: I just started playing the demo video and my little boy came running. He was smiling and really into it. Definitely got something right with the sound effects and voices!
kbutler 14y ago
Nice! One comment: At :45, when the character clicked the clock at "02:28 pm" the voice read it as "2 hours 28 minutes". Probably need a better time->text conversion.
- speeder 14y ago
  The non-formal english rules for time are absurdly crazy (At least to me), so I went with normal rules that all other countries use... Maybe one day I will take my time to figure how US people speak the time.
  - kbutler 14y ago
    In US English the example would be "two twenty-eight pm". This appears sane to me. The only complexity is for a single-digit minute, in which case you pronounce the 0 as "oh": "two oh-eight pm". I guess you have the exact hour, too: "2 o'clock". Is there really a country that says "2 hours 28 minutes" for 2:28 pm? Omitting "pm" seems to leave it underspecified unless you have a locale that uses 24-hour time starting at noon. If you want complex time rules, in colloquial Thai the day is broken up into roughly 6-hour periods, with a flexible additional split in afternoon/evening...
    - speeder 14y ago
      Oh, what you are complaining is the lack of PM. I thought you was referring to crazy phrases (to me) of 3 hours and a quarter Or half past 6 or something like that. (or 7 o clock) There are no am/pm spoken because only US use am/pm format, in all other countries the default is 24-hour actually. So I think I missed that. Maybe in the future I will implement am/pm spoken :)
      - bpicolo 14y ago
        I think his complaint was that "2:28" would be said as "two twenty-eight" in America, as opposed to "two hours twenty-eight minutes"
      - 14y ago

17 points by speeder 14y ago

I was at my daughter's end of term assembly last week, and a younger sibling from another family was getting tetchy. I had your Matroska (sp?) game on my phone and she loved it, and I got to hear the assembly :-)

speeder 14y ago
Thanks :) Right now we got suddenly bogged by OEM work (ie: some manufacturers want to ship our apps on their stuff), but as soon as we finish that we will release a new version of the Matryoshka (with 9 dolls instead of 3, plus a challenge mode of sorts).

tjansen 14y ago

First thought: Looks great, artwork is fantastic. Second thought: I don't have kids and maybe I don't have a clue, but I wonder whether kids will understand it, especially the concept of numeric temperatures. What age group are you aiming this at? I could imagine that for kids it would be more valuable to explain the weather ("It's gonna snow", "Warm enough for T-Shirts", "Don't forget your umbrella"...). Or maybe explain the numbers ("temperature is in the high 90s - that means that it's so hot your going to sweat").

speeder 14y ago
It shows the weather in the window, and graphics change (for example if it is raining the character grabs a umbrella). Also if you tap any text, speech happen. The purpose of this is teach kids the meaning of the numbers on this context. This is why it has two clocks too (one analog and one digital)

LVB 14y ago

Here's one data point: I just started playing the demo video and my little boy came running. He was smiling and really into it. Definitely got something right with the sound effects and voices!

kbutler 14y ago

Nice! One comment: At :45, when the character clicked the clock at "02:28 pm" the voice read it as "2 hours 28 minutes". Probably need a better time->text conversion.

speeder 14y ago
The non-formal english rules for time are absurdly crazy (At least to me), so I went with normal rules that all other countries use... Maybe one day I will take my time to figure how US people speak the time.
- kbutler 14y ago
  In US English the example would be "two twenty-eight pm". This appears sane to me. The only complexity is for a single-digit minute, in which case you pronounce the 0 as "oh": "two oh-eight pm". I guess you have the exact hour, too: "2 o'clock". Is there really a country that says "2 hours 28 minutes" for 2:28 pm? Omitting "pm" seems to leave it underspecified unless you have a locale that uses 24-hour time starting at noon. If you want complex time rules, in colloquial Thai the day is broken up into roughly 6-hour periods, with a flexible additional split in afternoon/evening...
  - speeder 14y ago
    Oh, what you are complaining is the lack of PM. I thought you was referring to crazy phrases (to me) of 3 hours and a quarter Or half past 6 or something like that. (or 7 o clock) There are no am/pm spoken because only US use am/pm format, in all other countries the default is 24-hour actually. So I think I missed that. Maybe in the future I will implement am/pm spoken :)
    - bpicolo 14y ago
      I think his complaint was that "2:28" would be said as "two twenty-eight" in America, as opposed to "two hours twenty-eight minutes"
    - 14y ago