Rhymeville is a great example of our interactive development work with an educational focus.   The game is intended for children in the Reception year at primary school and follows the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum for literacy.  It was developed in conjunction with educational experts - teachers working directly with this year group.

Within the core curriculum area of literacy, the game foregrounds the following key aspects: letter and word recognition, letter and phoneme sounds; developing reading skills, spotting rhyming words, and understanding sentence structure. This is all taught via familiar narratives - three classic nursery rhymes: Humpty Dumpty, Incy Wincy and Jack and Jill, and tied together with the overarching concept of two friendly neighbourhood mice, Hickory and Dickory.  By fully exploring their town, Rhymeville and playing all the games, you can help them to mend their broken clocktower, providing a satisfying reward mechanic.  The game has it own unique look and feel, influenced by the Japanese inspired, cute-kawaii style, and beautifully designed by our in-house designer, Lauren Morse.

Built on the BBC’s in-house younger audience games engine, IVOR, Rhymeville is published as a browser game using HTML5 and can be accessed on both desktop and mobile devices.  We utilised some fun game mechanics to ensure that kids play as they learn, such as popping raindrops that carry letter sounds to fill gaps in a word, or catching Humpty’s eggs in a basket, and a matching pairs game, based on rhyming words.  When you’ve completed all the mini game challenges there is a chance to sing along to the nursery rhyme at the end, sung by popular CBeebies presenter, Cat Sandion.

The game is available on the BBC Bitesize website for children to access at home and in the classroom.