Letters
The giant letter and a critter whose name starts with it. A is for apple, D is for duck, W is for whale, Z is for zebra. Twenty-six of them, drawn in code.
Smushkeys
A baby keyboard smash game. Hand over the laptop, let them bash every key, and the screen answers with critters, giant letters, confetti, lights and a note. Nothing breaks, nothing gets typed, and nothing leaves this page.
For babies and toddlers
Every key does something. Letters bring a critter, numbers bring dots, space brings a wave. Click the small stage and try one.
Full screen locks Escape and Tab on Chrome and Edge. Hold Escape or press Done to stop.
Click, then press any key
0 KEYS 0 CRITTERS LAST -
Parent's controls
Set these before you hand it over. They are remembered in this browser only.
What each key does
Press the samples and they fire on the small stage above.
Numbers
The numeral and exactly that many dots, said out loud. Zero gets an empty ring, which is only fair.
Space
A wave in a family colour rolls across the whole stage with a whoosh. The most-pressed key on any keyboard gets the biggest answer.
Enter
Fireworks. Three bursts of paper confetti, a fanfare on the scale, and the border lights up.
Arrows
A striped ball rolls in from the edge and across the stage in that direction.
Everything else
Punctuation brings a star, a heart, a triangle or a ring. Shift, Control, Alt, Tab and the big keys shake the stage with a thump. A click or a tap anywhere pops a critter right there.
How to hand over the laptop
Press Play full screen. The stage fills the screen and from then on every key is swallowed by the page: nothing is typed into anything, no shortcuts fire, and the page cannot be scrolled, tabbed or backspaced out of. On Chrome and Edge the game also locks the keyboard, which means Escape and Tab are caught too and holding Escape for two seconds is the only way out. On Safari and Firefox one press of Escape leaves full screen, so the game stops when that happens and you press play again.
Two honest limits. No website can block Cmd+Q, Cmd+W or Alt+F4; the operating system owns those. If a small hand finds them the browser will at least ask "leave this page?" first, because the game asks it to. And the trackpad still works, so a laptop with the lid propped and the trackpad covered by a book is the classic setup. A phone or tablet is simpler: tapping the stage does everything a key does.
How it works
The stage is a canvas. Every critter is drawn in code from circles, ellipses and triangles, in the colours of the other instruments in this family, so there is nothing to download and nothing to load. The notes are synthesised in the browser on a pentatonic scale, which is the scale where every note sounds fine next to every other note, so a fistful of keys never sounds wrong. The voice is the browser's own speech, spoken locally.
Nothing that is pressed, tapped or said is sent anywhere. The only thing this page records is that a game started, how many keys were pressed and for how long. Never which ones.
Questions parents ask
- Is it safe to let a baby smash the keyboard on this page?
- Yes. While the game is open every key press is swallowed, so nothing is typed anywhere and no shortcuts fire. In full screen on Chrome and Edge, Escape and Tab are locked too. The only keys no website can block are Cmd+Q, Cmd+W and Alt+F4.
- Does it work on an iPad or a phone?
- Yes. Tapping the stage does the same as a key: a critter pops up under the finger with a burst and a note. Use Play right here on an iPhone or iPad, which do not let web pages go full screen.
- Does it need an account, an app or a download?
- No. It is one web page with no ads and no account. Nothing that is pressed leaves the browser.
- How do I stop it?
- Hold Escape for about two seconds, or click the small Done button in the corner of the stage.
- Is it a BabySmash for the browser?
- It is the same idea, a keyboard the baby is allowed to bash, without installing anything. It runs on a Mac, a Chromebook, Windows, Linux and a tablet, wherever there is a browser.