When it comes to educational games the gameplay can be as simple as ABC, but rarely are they fun. Metamorphabet feels specifically made to solve that problem.
Learning games are often not too engaging or fun, however, Metamorphabet brings joy in poking and moving letters of the alphabet around, bending the letter to become something else — starting with the same letter you are moving.
A 3D letter appears before you, accompanying it is a calm voice, clearly stating what letter it is. Then, it’s time for the fun to begin! You can poke and move the letter, trying to lead it into the next rendition of what the letter was or find something related to the letter pop out of it. An orange falls out of the letter O — the voice tells you about the orange, then this orange moves into a planetarian orbit, until you pluck that orange back down towards the floor. Then an ostrich appears, sniffing and moving the orange around.
These quick changes of the letter, giving tangible examples of words starting with that letter, are beautifully presented and quite fun to play around with. Once you have discovered everything you can about the letter, a little star appears in the corner. This star can be clicked allowing you to move forward on to the next level.
There is a beautiful simplicity to the game, as well as so much joy that comes from each noise, interpretation of the letter, and movement of them. Jiggling a J is just fun, the N turning into a building full of people with a giant nose on the neck of a strange creature — it’s difficult to guess what’s going to come next. But, once you do see the words that were chosen for the letter, it’s just fun to play around with it. It’s worth mentioning that you can play Metamorphabet on a tablet or touch device, meaning you can hand the game to a younger child and allow them to play with it while learning about the alphabet.
Metamorphabet was a part of the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality and you can purchase the game on itch.io, for PC, iOS and Android.
Check out our top games from the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality.
