Science Game for Kids That Sparks Curiosity: Prof. Nano

Prof. Nano is the project closest to home. I'm a father, and most of what I've built so far isn't for my child. Horror stories and dragons are not what I want on the family tablet. So I made something that is.

A science game, for children

Prof. Nano is a science game for kids. The idea is simple: a friendly professor, short activities, and real science underneath — the kind of "why does this happen?" questions children ask all the time and adults often find hard to answer, or to explain in a way that really makes sense.

I wanted play first. If a child feels they're doing homework, I've lost. The learning should be the thing they bump into while having fun, not the thing they're asked to sit through.

Why Turkish first

For now, Prof. Nano is available in Turkish only, starting in Türkiye. That's a deliberate first step, not a lack of ambition: I want to get one language right before translating it into others.

Making something for children in a language I speak natively means I can hear when a sentence is too hard, when a word is wrong for a six-year-old, when a joke doesn't land. I can test it on the child in front of me. I didn't want to launch in six languages and be guessing in five of them.

What I'm careful about

This is the part I'd want to read as a parent, so here it is plainly.

A children's game is a different responsibility from anything else I've made. With a horror story, the worst outcome is that an adult gets bored. With a game for a seven-year-old, the worst outcome is that I waste a child's attention or teach them something wrong. So I've tried to keep Prof. Nano calm, clear and honest about the science, and my goal is a game you can hand to a child and not hover over.

I'm a one-person studio, so I can't claim a team of educators reviewed every screen. What I can say is that I built it with my own child in mind, and that I'll be listening closely to the parents who try it.

Making it in the evenings

Like everything else here, Prof. Nano was built in the hours after work and on weekends. That has one advantage I didn't expect: I was building it in the same hours a child is awake and asking questions. More than one activity in the game started from something I was asked at the dinner table and couldn't explain well on the spot.

The plan: more educational mini-games

Prof. Nano as it stands is a start, not the whole idea. The plan is to gradually add more informative, educational mini-games, each around a different topic, so that over time it grows into a small library rather than a single game.

After the Turkish version has settled and I've learned from real families, I want to translate it into all the languages I can, properly, not with a quick machine pass. Children deserve better than that, and so do the parents who have to read along.

Where it is now

Prof. Nano is out now on the App Store in Turkish, and the English version is on its way to review. The first island, Lighthouse Point, is free to play. If you're a parent and you try it, tell me what your child did and didn't understand. That's the feedback that will shape what comes next.