Why Ninjadoodle is Evolving

Ninjadoodle has been part of our lives for a long time.

It started with puzzle games — small, quirky, sometimes slightly odd ideas that were mostly about one thing: seeing if we could make something fun, clever, and satisfying to play. Over the years, those games ended up in classrooms, on school sites, and in all sorts of unexpected places online.

What really sharpened our perspective was having our own child.

Watching how kids actually move through games — what holds attention, what frustrates, what sparks curiosity, and what gets ignored — looks very different when it’s happening in your own living room.

You start to notice not just how they play, but what they’re being asked to navigate at the same time: pop-ups, rewards layered on rewards, constant prompts, and interruptions that have very little to do with the game itself. A lot of things we’d noticed over the years suddenly clicked into place.

At the same time, it’s become impossible to ignore how early kids now form connections and influences online.

Games, videos, characters, and platforms aren’t just entertainment — they shape habits, expectations, and the way kids see the digital world. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it does make who shows up first incredibly important.

We’ve found ourselves thinking a lot about what it means to be a positive first space online — one that kids encounter early, return to often, and associate with curiosity, fun, and learning rather than noise or pressure.

That idea of being a first line of influence — and, in some ways, a first line of defence — has quietly become central to how we think about Ninjadoodle’s next chapter.

Instead of just making standalone games, we’re leaning into something a bit bigger:
using those same game-making skills to help create better online spaces for kids — places where they can learn, practise, experiment, and have fun doing it.

Not in a heavy, “this is learning now” way.
More in the “oh, I didn’t realise I was practising that” way.

As part of that shift, we’ve also made a clear choice about how Ninjadoodle Learning will work.

We’re keeping it ad-free, and we’ll be asking families to pay for access instead.

Not because we think everything should be locked away — but because ads and kids don’t mix well, and we didn’t want design decisions being driven by clicks, watch time, or interruptions. We’d rather build things properly, with room to think and experiment, and that’s much easier to do when the people using it are the ones supporting it.

It also means we don’t have to keep kids inside a screen for longer than necessary.

That’s where Ninjadoodle Learning comes in.

The games are still a big part of it — playful, interactive, and designed to invite curiosity rather than pressure. But we’re also adding something new alongside them: printables.

That part is very intentional.

The printables are there to:

• extend what kids are exploring in the games
• give parents something tangible to sit with alongside their child
• encourage moments of connection away from the screen
• let learning spill out into the real world

Sometimes that might mean printing a page and colouring it together.
Sometimes it’s cutting things out, talking through an idea, or noticing patterns on paper that first showed up in a game.

The screen becomes the starting point — not the whole experience.

For us, this feels like a natural next step.
We’re still making games. We’re still chasing fun. We’re just being more intentional about how those games fit into family life, learning, and the everyday busyness of being a kid — and a parent.

This evolution isn’t about changing what Ninjadoodle is so much as expanding what it can be.

We’re excited to keep sharing how it’s taking shape — and we’re really glad you’re here while it does.