Review: Symmetry School

Creating educational games isn’t easy. It’s not the product itself that’s the difficult bit – after all the games’ industry is the biggest in the world – it’s the fact that education systems differ from country to country, and sometimes, from county to county. It’s ok if you live in a populated country or have a government that funds educational software, but Ireland has neither of these things. Despite this, there are a number of Irish software companies that produce good products.

Pixel Soup Ltd. are the latest Irish company to enter the educational market with an interesting idea. They have come up the concept called Spraoi Schools – a number of small apps that teach specific aspects of the curriculum. The first of these apps is called Symmetry School, where users fill in a grid and attempt to create a perfect symmetrical pattern. It’s available for PCs and iPads at the moment and it supports the Irish curriculum well.

The first thing I noticed about Symmetry School is its beauty. No doubt about it, this is a good-looking app. The second thing I noticed was its simplicity. One doesn’t need any instructions (though these are included) to play the game. It’s very intuitive. The third thing I noticed was I got addicted very quickly!

The game is educationally very sound and follows the maths curriculum in Ireland. The great thing, I think, is that it probably supports any country’s maths curriculum, as I’m fairly sure everyone has to learn about symmetry in some way. This instantly gives this app a massive market. Cleverly, the app doesn’t state the age group that’s it’s aimed at, which again broadens its appeal.

This appears to be the first in a series of educational apps and while we wait for this, Symmetry School is further pushing the boundaries of education with an eye tracking feature that allows one to track eye movements to make gameplay even more interesting. It’s well worth watching their YouTube video on this. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the Spraoi School apps and if this app is anything to by, I can see it being very successful in our schools.