On paper
Four topics. Add starts at three digits, because the one- and two-digit ladders are usually done by then; its five levels are ordered by carrying, ending with a column that only reaches ten because of the carry it received. Take away runs from two digits without regrouping, two digits with, three digits, two borrows in a row, and borrowing through a zero. Times is built in the order the idea actually forms: equal groups, then arrays, then the tables, then two digits by one. Divide covers sharing out, making bags, the fact family, leftovers, and two digits by one with and without a rip. Its last level asks the child to find the baker's mistake instead of doing the sum.
Division levels 1 and 2 are the same sum asked two ways — how many each and how many bags — because a child taught only one of them reads the other as a brand new operation. They are worth weeks rather than days. Division level 3 stays locked until Times level 4 is finished, because dividing without the tables is just counting. Every story panel has a small blue Why button: it explains the reason for the step and never advances anything, so pressing it is the child's choice.
Multiplication levels 1 and 2 are the ones worth lingering on. A child who has only learnt the tables by chanting them can recite 7 × 8 but cannot tell you what it means, and that becomes a wall at division and fractions. Levels 1 and 2 make the meaning concrete first. Level 2 turns the tray sideways on purpose: 3 × 4 and 4 × 3 are the same cookies, which halves the number of table facts there are to hold.
The same packs of ten come back in multiplication levels 5 and 6. Bundling 21 loose cookies into 2 packs and 1 spare is the carry in written multiplication, and it is the same trade as the rip in subtraction, run the other way. That is the reason both topics live in one game.
Every reward is paid for finishing a problem, never for finishing fast. There is no timer anywhere. Cookies come one per solved problem, two once three in a row are right. Five correct on a level unlocks the next; stars at 5, 12 and 25 give a reason to stay after the new one opens.
The Shelf is the long game, and it is meant to be slow. A level turns gold at three stars, which is twenty-five right; a trophy needs every level in a topic gold, and the Golden Jar needs all four trophies. The friends all arrive inside a few hundred cookies and then stop arriving, and a child who has met everybody has nothing left to walk towards. This is what is left: twenty-three levels, and a reason to go back to the early ones rather than only ever playing the newest.
The Big Order appears once the child has got at least one right in all four topics. It is ten problems drawn from every level that is open, jumbled, and it is the only place in the game that asks which kind of sum is this before it asks anything else. Six subtractions in a row put a child on rails: the method is already in hand before the question has been read. An order takes the rails away, which is the difference between knowing a method and recognising when to use it. Each problem still pays into its own level, so an order is practice and not a detour from it; the tip on top is a cookie per item and ten more for an order with nothing wrong in it. Skipping is allowed and costs only the perfect.
The Snaffler is the only thing in here that is not on the child's side, and he turns up as soon as one add and one take away have gone in, which is before anything else. He has a sack of twelve and every question won takes one back, so the child climbs from nothing towards twelve: what a mistake costs is a cookie the child had not got yet, never one out of the jar. Taking cookies off a child for getting sums wrong punishes exactly the child who is finding it hard. One strike a question — get it wrong first go and that one is the Snaffler's, but the question still has to be finished, so a child who needs three attempts at the same sum has still learnt it and has not watched the whole sack disappear. He advances on mistakes and never on time; there is still no timer anywhere. Save more than he eats and he goes away and comes back harder: adding and taking away first, then times, then dividing.
The party is unlocked by the first trophy and can be thrown as often as the child likes. It pays nothing and cannot be lost. Everybody who has arrived turns up wearing whatever their cookies have earned them, and the cake carries one candle per trophy.
Back a bit in a story and Undo in a practice both step backwards one move at a time. Nothing is ever lost by going back, and no reward is taken away for it.
Everybody in the game has a made-up name. Change them to anyone your child would like to bake for: their own friends, a sibling, a favourite toy. The first one is the baker who tells every story. Leave a box empty to go back to the made-up name. Names stay in this browser, like the rest of the progress, and are never sent anywhere. Renaming a friend keeps every cookie they have been given.
Progress saves in this browser, per device. Starting again wipes the cookies, friends and stars, and keeps the names and the sound settings.
No warranty, and no responsibility accepted. This is a home-made game, put online in case it is useful to somebody. It is provided as is, with no guarantee that it is correct, suitable for teaching, or fit for any particular purpose, and no responsibility is accepted by anyone for how it is used or for anything that follows from using it. Check the maths yourself before relying on it. Nothing is collected, tracked, or sent anywhere: progress is saved by this browser, on this device, and nowhere else. Use it, copy it and change it at your own risk.