Fathom
Deep-sea puzzles for children—and adults honest enough to ask for a turn.
Zone three · 340 metres · no daylight
The puzzles descend. Light fades, pressure rises, and each zone alters one rule you thought you understood. Fathom is built for small hands and wandering attention, but not at the expense of the adult peering over a shoulder. There are no ads, purchases or timers. The deep water is patient.
What it does
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Deeper water, stranger rules
Each zone lies deeper than the last. The light thins, the board reveals less of itself, and one rule changes—what a piece can do, or what the board does in reply. You leave a zone by understanding it, not by filling a score bar.
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Made for small hands, not small minds
Targets are generous, nothing demands a fast or exact touch, and a half-solved puzzle will wait a week without complaint. The interaction is built for children. The puzzles are built for whoever picks it up.
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Nothing ticking, nothing for sale
No ads, purchases, subscriptions, timers or streaks. Nothing in the game demands to be played now, and nothing punishes you for putting it down.
Process
- Problem
- Children's puzzle games are often solved in seconds by the adult holding the iPad, or made fiddly enough that the child needs that adult at every turn. Both routes end with the adult playing.
- Current bet
- Put the difficulty in the board instead of a menu. Each zone adds one rule; depth comes from holding those rules together, never from speed, reflexes or precision of touch.
- Hard problem
- A single difficulty curve that holds a seven-year-old and a forty-year-old without a mode switch. A mode switch announces to the child which mode they were put in, which is the thing being avoided.
- Status
- Prototype. Three zones playable, no art pass yet, and the difficulty model being tested with a small group of children and the adults they play with.