Supported Features
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VoiceOver
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Larger Text
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Sufficient Contrast
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Reduced Motion
Rookaby Teaches Toddlers Chess
Spoken lessons for pre-readers
Free · In‑App Purchases
Every lesson is read aloud, so there are no words on screen. Pick the voice: a man, a woman, or both.
Chess your child can learn before they can read.
Rookaby reads every lesson aloud. There is nothing on screen your child has to work out for
themselves, no account to make, and nothing to get wrong.
WHO READS
Choose a man's voice, a woman's voice, or alternating narrators in Settings. The six chess pieces have their own character voices. Choosing a narrator does not change these character voices. Only one voice speaks at a time. Tap a narrator choice to hear a sample before you decide.
FROM AGE TWO, FREE
- First board activity. Move Bonk on the screen by dragging, or tap the rook and then a square. Take turns with your child; no chess set needed.
- Watch the pieces. The six of them potter about on their own, and it ends by itself.
- Meet the pieces. Touch one and it says its name and makes its sound.
- Two houses. Cream ones live here, dark ones live there.
- Whose shadow? Match a piece to its own silhouette.
- Take turns. One drum between you, and a voice that says whose turn it is.
- The board. An on-screen board with every piece and nothing to achieve.
FROM AGE THREE
Six characters, six stories. Bonk the rook is too wide for a corner, so Bonk walks only the
straight roads. Peppel the pawn is a seed, and a seed grows one way only. Every story answers WHY a
piece moves the way it does, because a reason is something a three-year-old can rebuild and a rule
is something they forget. After each story comes a game with that one piece and one star to reach.
FROM AGE FOUR
Once each piece's walk makes sense, the rules of the game arrive: how you take a piece, how a king
gets out of trouble, and what catching him for good looks like. Take one, Get Poffel out, Catch the
king. They come as puzzles and never as a match. Every board has an answer, and the app works it out
before your child sees it, so there is no position to get stuck in and no opponent to lose to.
GAMES FOR TWO
To the other side is a race across the board with your pawns, and it is free. Then Rookaby tells you
which piece to put where on your own wooden board and reads the lesson aloud while your child plays
on wood with you.
NOTHING TO GET WRONG
No timers. No points. No three stars. No way to lose and no way to get stuck. A wrong tap gets an
answer, never a buzzer. Your child can hear the same story forty times, and nothing runs out.
HEALTHY SCREEN TIME, BY DESIGN
Pediatric guidance for this age asks for screen time that is short, good, and shared, without
autoplay or reward loops. Rookaby is built to fit inside it: the watch mode ends on its own and
nothing plays next, there are no points or streaks, the turn-taking game seats you beside your child,
and the AAP and WHO sources are listed in the app.
NOTHING COLLECTED
No accounts, no analytics, no advertising. Rookaby asks for nothing and sends nothing; the
purchases are handled by the App Store itself.
Anything that costs money sits behind a question only a grown-up can answer.
WHAT COSTS MONEY
Stage 0 stays free. Rookaby Everything opens all stories, games, the real-board coach and puzzles in one purchase. The base option remains available. Base owners buy only the missing puzzles. Existing purchases stay valid. No subscription.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Rookaby has a new wooden play world, a larger logo and clearer labels. Each chess piece speaks with its own voice. In the free Bonk activity, move the rook together on the screen by dragging it or selecting squares. Screen-reader controls support these moves too. Restoring individual packs and retrying price loading now work more reliably.
The developer, Oomny B.V., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Oomny B.V.
- Size
- 191.7 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 14 more
- English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Made for Ages 0–5
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Rookaby Everything $14.99
- Rookaby Taking & Checkmate $3.99
- Rookaby Stories & Real Board $11.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Oomny B.V.
