How BrimbleBay works
Everything a grown-up needs to set up earned time, from the first five minutes to quiet hours and Family time.
- Getting started
- Open, Earn, Hidden
- How children earn
- The jar and goals
- Spending time
- Limits and quiet hours
- Family time
- Brothers and sisters
- Progress
- Locking the iPad
Getting started
The first time BrimbleBay opens, a short set-up walks you through it. You can skip it and come back any time from For grown-ups > Set up again.
- Parent passcode. Choose a code only grown-ups know. It protects settings, the family plan and anything that leaves the app.
- Children. Add each child's first name or nickname. Nothing else is asked.
- Games they earn. Tick the Game Night games that should be earned. Learning games can't be ticked: they're always open.
- Quiet hours and a daily limit, if you'd like them.
- Lock to BrimbleBay. A quick guide to Apple's Guided Access.
Open, Earn time or Hidden
In For grown-ups > Games and earned time, every game has three settings. You can set them for everyone, or give a child their own.
| Setting | What your child sees |
|---|---|
| Open | Plays any time. |
| Earn time | An orange badge. Playing spends minutes from their jar. |
| Hidden | Not shown at all. |
Whole rooms can be hidden too. Learning Room and Active Play games are always Open or Hidden, never Earn time, because learning should never feel like a toll booth.
Out of the box, the fast arcade games are set to Earn time: Rocket Rails, Paper Jungle, WindPuck, Peg League, Comet Kitchen, BeatBloom, Tidelight and Plank-Pile. Change any of them in two taps.
How children earn
Children earn minutes for new progress, not for time in the app. Going over something already mastered doesn't earn again, so there's nothing to gain from rushing easy work.
| Game | One step | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Sprout & Spell | a new word in bloom | 2 |
| Letterlight | a new letter | 2 |
| Pageling | a story understood | 5 |
| Abacus Harbor | a math skill mastered | 6 |
| Gulplings | a new level | 3 |
| Clockwork Market | a new skill | 4 |
| Echo Grove | a new song or skill | 3 |
| Fold Studio | a model folded | 5 |
| Mission Orbit | a new discovery | 3 |
| RouteBots | a puzzle solved | 4 |
| DoodleLoft | a drawing lesson | 4 |
| Moonbeam Stretch | a pose or trail | 4 |
| Crinkle's Hangar | a sticker or plane | 3 |
| Red Light, Green Light | a round | 2 |
| HustleClock | a mission beaten | 2 (up to 8 a day) |
- Practice counts a little: 1 minute for every 3 practice turns, up to 5 minutes a game a day.
- Earning rate: choose Fewer (half), Standard or More (one and a half times).
- Most minutes earned in a day: 30, 45 (the default), 60 or 90.
- A jar holds up to 1, 2 (the default) or 4 hours, so minutes can be saved for the weekend.
- Bonus minutes: give +5, +15 or +30 for real-world things like chores, reading a paper book or practising an instrument. Bonuses don't count toward the daily maximum. "Take 5 back" is there too.
When minutes are earned, BrimbleBay says so in plain words, for example: "Mia earned 6 minutes! New progress in Sprout & Spell."
The jar and goals
A child taps their name to open My jar. It shows their minutes as a jar filling up, so pre-readers understand it too.
They can set a goal: pick one of their Earn time games and 10, 20 or 30 minutes. BrimbleBay then suggests a short plan from the learning and active games, like "a new word in Sprout & Spell, a story in Pageling, a new yoga pose in Moonbeam Stretch". When the jar has enough, a big Play button appears.
Spending time
- A small clock shows the minutes left while an Earn time game is played. It only counts while the game is on screen.
- Two minutes before the end there's a gentle warning.
- At zero the game pauses under a calm "Time's up" card. Nothing is lost, and there's never a prompt to buy more.
Daily limit and quiet hours
Daily limit: set the most minutes that can be spent on Earn time games in a day (no limit, 30, 45, 60 or 90). Even with a full jar, the rest waits for tomorrow.
Quiet hours: choose times when Earn time games rest, for example 7:30 pm to 7:00 am. A game that's running ends gently and the minutes left stay in the jar. Learning, Active Play and Family time aren't affected.
Family time
Start Family time for 30, 60 or 90 minutes and every Earn time game opens for everyone on that device without using anyone's minutes. It's handy for game night or a rainy afternoon. Hidden games stay hidden.
Brothers and sisters
Each child has their own jar, goal and settings. Turn on a picture password for a child and they'll tap 2, 3 or 4 pictures before playing an Earn time game. It keeps siblings honest; it isn't meant to be strong security, which is what your parent passcode is for.
Tonight's table on the home screen: add the family once and every Game Night game fills in the players' names and keeps the night's winners.
Progress
In For grown-ups > Progress, each child has a page showing the new things they learned in the last 7 days, minutes earned and spent, time in each room, and every learning game's progress, with what's going well and what's worth practising.
Locking the iPad to BrimbleBay
Apple's Guided Access keeps a child inside one app. Turn it on in Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access, open BrimbleBay, then triple-click the side or Home button to start. BrimbleBay's For grown-ups > Lock to BrimbleBay shows the steps.