We love making things for children, they intuitively ‘get it’ and we get to test out ideas that are playful and experimental. Space Pirates is a series of music games that explore different ways for children to be creative and have fun with music. The games were inspired by Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS and gave 3-6 year olds the opportunity to use music sequencers, jam freely to different musical styles and explore musical textures in an ambient world that comes alive with a sweep of the mouse.

Commissioned by Cbeebies, the Space Pirates Music games gave us the opportunity to explore the new interactive sound capabilities of Flash ActionScript 3. Milo’s sound toys for Space Pirates are Bubble Pop, Wake up Shoop and Sun and Moon, and Music Moods.

Part of the joy of making things for 3 to 6 year olds is that they are ruthless critics who will not give you the time of day if you fail to engage them, but as we discovered over repeated (and very, very funny) user testing sessions, they will not be fazed by blobby piano-monsters, musical trees, singing octopuses and alien sheep... so we let our surreal, fun loving spirit run wild.

Magic Paintbox is an application for 3-7 year olds to paint and draw in a fun, creative and highly expressive way. It is based on the popular Cbeebies programme Get Squiggling. We worked with the TV production company and the animatronics experts behind it to bring Squiglet (the furry character protagonist of the show) to life through the activity, where he provides lively comment and encouragement.

Drawing with pen and paper in the real world is difficult enough for young children, let alone on the computer, when their motor co-ordination skills are still developing. That's why we created an intuitive interface that allows them to create through a series of guided story activities. We also developed an exciting free draw tool that builds the users drawing skills in an fun, assistive and playful interactive environment. Users can even use a webcam to create exciting, personal and original artwork based on their own faces, or those of their family.

Activities are based on stories, problem solving (through the creation of artwork) and the type of play scenarios that children love to imagine when they draw. We built encouraging feedback and reward mechanisms into the activities. This results in instant and gratifying responses to children's interactions from Magic tools that reveal animation to real world objects that provide suggestions of things to do in the real world.