Activity
Ploppy Pairs: Matching game app
Stretch your memory skills with this accessible matching game for beginners and experts!
A fun card matching/memory game for everyone available on iOS, Mac and Apple TV! Ploppy Pairs is a unique matching game with its SharePlay functionality enabling friends and family to play together via FaceTime.
There are various theme-based levels with difficulties from 4 up to 70 cards. Yes – 70 cards for those who want to stretch their mental memory abilities! After the level is played, a new level is unlocked.
Want to try? The first level is free!
How to play
Each level starts with a set of randomized cards, which are faced down. Tap a card to flip it and memorize the character on the card. If the next tapped card’s character matches the first one, the cards stay faced up; cards that do not match will be flipped over again. Match all the cards in the set.
How to play with VoiceOver
Drag your finger to find a card; VoiceOver will announce, “Card 1, button”. Split tap to select the card and listen closely as the card is announced. Be sure to associate the card number (and location!) with the name of the card! Drag your finger to the next desired card and split tap to select. If the cards match, VoiceOver announces, “match” with a fun sound and the matched cards remain face up.
Listen carefully to the character names! The characters on the cards have interesting “Ploppy” names, such as “Ploppenstein” for Frankenstein and “Plummy” for Mummy. Can you identify the real character that the Ploppy character was named after? There are five themes; one theme for each level.
Note: The cards are numbered in columns, meaning Card 1 is the top left card. Card 2 is below Card 1. (This might be confusing, as usually items are numbered in rows, starting with the top left and moving right across the row.)
Swipe right and left gestures can also be used to navigate from card to card. Swipe right does not follow the standard ‘move to the next item in the row’; instead, swipe right moves down the column before moving to the next column. The drag gesture is recommended for students/players who are learning to develop a strong mental map of each card’s position on the screen.
When a new game is started, VoiceOver will announce the level and the number of cards on the screen. This is important, as the number of cards will vary!
How to use SharePlay
When on a FaceTime call, open Ploppy Pairs – an additional button will be next to the restart button within the game. Tap it to start the SharePlay session. All other participants will be notified about the newly started session. A popup will show up where they can either join the session if they have Ploppy Pairs already installed or to download Ploppy Pairs. As soon as one player flips a card, it will also flip on all the other participant’s devices. (For players who rely on VoiceOver, it is recommended that all players turn VoiceOver on, so that the card number and character is always announced.) The same behavior appears for opening/closing the map and restarting/switching the level – all other interactions will only happen locally on the players device itself.
The overlaying video window can be dragged to the specific placeholder position at the top left of the game and can be resized by pinching gestures. The shared gameplay is meant to be cooperative and not as one against the other, which means to communicate with each other as soon as someone knows a match and letting them flip the cards. A player can exit the session by tapping the previous mentioned SharePlay button again.
Features
- Play together via SharePlay during FaceTime calls
- Kids-friendly designed – can be played by everyone even the youngest ones who cannot read yet
- Five different themes with 30 levels overall
- Different difficulties from 4 up to 70 cards
- Endless gameplay by randomized cards
- One level for trying out the game for free via App Clip
- Unlockable skins in each level
- Sticker Pack included – share the Ploppies with family and friends via iMessage
- No advertisements or in-app purchases within the game
- Offline playable
- Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.
Accessibility
The game is designed to work with VoiceOver. The buttons and game play cards are fully accessible.
Map
As you move through the themed levels, there is a visual reward map that shows where you are in the game play. Drag your finger around the map to hear the different levels announced; however, the visual images of the map are not announced and where Ploppy is along the path is not announced. Interacting with the map is not necessary for game play or to move to the next level. However, it would be nice to have the map fully accessible too!
Resource
- Ploppy Pairs in the App Store (free first level; $1.99 US for all levels)
- Introducing matching games for kids Ploppy Podcast by AppleVis
By Diane Brauner
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