Some fun facts about Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and Ladders by MadRat Games

Snakes and Ladders is a game each one of us knows from childhood. We’ve always played the game with gusto but very few of us would know about the games history. Here are some fun facts about this game:

• Snakes and Ladders originated in India.
• It was known as moksha patam or vaikunthapaali or paramapada sopaanam (the ladder to salvation).
• The game made its way to England and was sold as “Snakes and Ladders”, then the basic concept was introduced in the United States as Chutes and Ladders
• A Jain version, Gyanbazi or Gyan chauper, dates to the 16th century. The game was called Leela and reflected the Hinduism consciousness surrounding everyday life. The underlying ideals of the game inspired a version introduced in Victorian England in 1892.
• Any version of Snakes and Ladders can be represented exactly as an absorbing Markov chain, since from any square the odds of moving to any other square are fixed and independent of any previous game history.

Know more about the game here and here.

And did you always wonder as to where can you buy the board game online? Well, head straight to MadRat Games for a Snakes and Ladders+Ludo combo only at INR 249!

More Games here: MadRat Online Store

4 fun games that will put life in any boring party!

Parties are meant to be fun but ironically, many a times, parties end up being these get together of people who are just staring at each others blank faces! Sometimes, all a party needs is a trigger that can break the ice and then the party can take its natural course. But this trigger or some extra zing to a meeting ground always keeps the spirit up. We, at MadRat Games, are big gaming enthusiasts and have developed just the right set of games that can help you spice up your parties. Here they are (you can buy them online):

1) The Nonsense Game– This is a show stopper. Do you remember those laughter sessions with friends or families where you laugh over things that are completely nonsensical? And the laughter never stops! This game recreates that atmosphere.

The time is running fast- How many connections can you make with the topic- “Things that are Slippery’ and start with the letter ‘P’? Umm… Pandit’s head! Panda’s tummy! Pears soap! The list goes on and the laughter never stops

There are over a 100 topics and some rules that make the game more competitive as well! So, don’t hold back and be as nonsensical as you like!

2) MadRat Antakshri– Bollywood Edition: A classic, Antakshri never gets old! And this one is the first ever Antakshri with cards! Packed with countless rounds of singing and endless laughter, the game makes people not just sing songs, but flaunt their acting skills, and a lot more as per the uniquely designed cassette cards! Get your hands on one today!

3) Blockbuster- The first ever Bollywood board game: this game is like monopoly but a movie is your life! the aim is to make an INR 100 crore Bollywood Blockbuster. One can make a romantic saga with Chocolate Capoor and Miss Silky, or an action flick with Jung-lee and Miss-fit! And on Friday release, the box office spinner decides whether the movie is a hit or a flop! One can get money from other players by making a Blockbuster with super hit songs and bankrupt the others to win the game! This is a sure shot hit with all Indian families!

4) Quizzingo– Is your family a quiz buff? Do they like keeping their neurons active and happy? Quizzingo might just be your solution. Quizzingo is unique in a way that someone might know the facts well but you can get ahead of them by making smart guesses. It features four unique categories covering questions that’ll leave you amazed! Do you know how many kilometers of line can a pencil draw? Are there more children born in a day than the number of daily customers to McDonalds? Curious? To find out, go Quizzingo!

If you have some interesting game ideas or some other ways to make parties fun, please drop in a comment or write to us at sm@madratgames.com

[Autism Awareness Day] How to identify if a kid is Autistic?

Autista iPad App (Download Link) | Blogpost about the launch

Autism is a disorder of neural development that is characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication and by restricted or stereotyped behaviour. There are 70 million kids affected by Autism over the world out of which 10 million are in India. To raise awareness about Autism, World Autism Awareness Day is being held on April 2 since 1989. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution.

A kid is affected at a very early stage in life and latest research says that the disorder can be recognized before a kid turns one. AutismSpeaks lists out the symptoms of Autism:

· No big smiles or other warm, joyful expressions by six months or thereafter
· No back-and-forth sharing of sounds, smiles or other facial expressions by nine months
· No babbling by 12 months
· No back-and-forth gestures such as pointing, showing, reaching or waving by 12 months
· No words by 16 months
· No meaningful, two-word phrases (not including imitating or repeating) by 24 months
· Any loss of speech, babbling or social skills at any age

Presently, there isn’t a medical test that can diagnose autism. Instead, specially trained physicians and psychologists administer autism-specific behavioral evaluations. And hence, it becomes very important to consult a doctor when any of the above signs are detected.

We, at MadRat Games have done our bit and recently launched the Autista App to help Autistic kids with verbal and fine motor skills. Do help us in taking the word out.

The Year Gone By!

 

It was back in 2010 when we started out with starry eyes to create a dent in the gaming industry in India. And after a good four years, we can proudly say that no one in India has been able to achieve this before! The journey has been long and full of learnings but we’ve managed to sail through and we have our eyes set on much bigger things! In this post, we wanted to look at all the amazing things that have happened with MadRat Games, especially in the last financial year.

Creating valuable IP in Game Design

MadRat Games is the only homegrown company in India that designs and manufactures games. Over the last few years, we’ve designed games like Aksharit (first ever Indian language word game) and My Toy Factory (one of its kind science based toy making kit). Along with these launching international brands like Modular Toys (seen as a competitor to Lego in 20 countries) and games under the Chhota Bheem license (biggest kids’ character in India) have put us on the international game design map.

We have in house IP of 70+ games for kids from strategy games to educational games, fun games to family games and some entirely new concepts like Puzzle+. This has given us the competency to now come up with high quality games at a very high rate of 4 or more new games every month!

Great Reach

Starting out from Bangalore, we’ve grown and managed to setup a chain that distributes our games throughout India. MadRat Games are present in more than 2,000 stores across India and we’ve touched more than 2 lakh families! We’re indebted to all our mentors, investors and well wishers, who’ve helped us in making and distributing products that have been appreciated so widely.

Awards and Recognition

Manthan International Award

Top Ten Indian Innovators alongside Tata Motors by Government of India

INK Talk by one of the co-founders, Madhumita Halder

Invited to speak at Asia’s largest entrepreneurial summit hosted by TiE

Press coverage

Cover Story in The WEEK magazine’s republic day edition, along with IndiaToday, Hindustan Times, Economic Times, MINT, The Hindu, INC magazine (pg 72,73), and many more!

The Road Ahead

We’re more than 50 mad rats across India now, all working hard to build more and more stimulating games. The smile we see on a kid’s face while playing our games is what keeps us going and the fact that the kid is learning is immensely satisfying. We’re also pushing hard on the mobile games front, keep watching 🙂

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Presenting Modular: Toys that improve 3D perception, planning and creativity among kids

New launch of imported range of Build-It-Yourself Modular Toys…

Developed by an Israeli company, Modular Construction Toys are three dimensional construction toys which kids can play with to create some amazing structures. We, at MadRat Games, are proud to bring these fantastic toys to India!

Kids can break and make toys from the same pieces and these toys develop 3D perception, planning, creativity and abstract thinking among kids. Here are some of the products:

Modular Town: Kids can arrange different kinds of blocks and fixtures to make their own grand towns consisting of beautiful castles and houses to bring their dreams to reality.

Modular Town Builder

Train Tracks and Race Tracks: Kids can arrange the various pieces of track in different orientation to create a topsy turvy rail track on which their toy train can move. There are race tracks also available on a similar concept.

Modular Train Track

 

Modular Racetrack

Benefits:
Increases Creativity
Excellent Quality
Colorful and Aesthetically beautiful
Easy to use for kids (Intuitive)
Very sturdy and long lasting

There are several Modular Products like Modular Racetracks, Castles, Trains, Characters and Cars. For young boys and girls, Modular toys are one of the best ways to learn and increase creativity as it adds an additional dimension to playing. Our philosophy has been to create stimulating games and including Modular Toys in our product catalogue has been primarily because of the high quality and learning value of these toys.

Modular toys are available here

Order a Modular Car Racing track and have a look at how much fun kids can have while playing and learning alongside:

Building the Autista App

Autism is a complex lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person can communicate and interact with other people. Millions of people across the world are affected by it and these are special people in need of help. There are a few apps in existence but most of them focus on instant communication and are rather expensive. We thought we could build something better to help kids with Autism and hence Autista.

The Process

More than 15 months of work has gone in the ideation and development of Autista. The iPad was selected to be the most effective device for such a solution and the main thing kept in mind while developing the application is the long term learning (see demo).

Our team has worked with the kids extensively and support from Communication DEALL (an early intervention program for children with developmental language disorders) has been immense. Learning in depth about the disorder, building paper solutions for it and then translating them to an app, Autista has undergone the full cycle.

Associations

We’ve been fortunate to have the guidance of some of the prominent personalities in this field. Their support helped us arrive at a much more informed solution.

Prof Matthew Belmonte: A professor at the Autism Research Centre, Professor Belmonte’s research centres on connecting abnormal deficits and abnormal superiorities in a range of cognitive capacities in autism, from lower-level perceptual and attentional skills to higher-level social cognitive skills. He approaches this problem from the perspective of neurophysiology. More about his work here.

Dr. Pratibha Karanth: A Speech Language Pathologist with nearly 40 years of experience in several national institutions in India. She has had a long standing interest in language disorders, both in children and adults. More about her work here.

The Reach

After the efforts we’ve put in to building Autista, the app is ready for use. We’ll be working with individuals and organizations all over the globe to take the app to as many Autistic kids as we can and will be continuously improving the app as well.

Do support us in spreading the word and get in touch with us @madratgames for anything related to Autista.

Press coverage: The Indian Express

Launching Autista: An app that helps autistic children improve verbal and fine motor skills

Autism is a disorder that arises in children of the age group 2-6 which makes it difficult for them to understand and express what their senses tell them. There are around 10 million children in India suffering from this disorder and the grave part is that the disorder wasn’t recognized by the government as a disability till 2001! There have been efforts to alleviate the problem but lot remains to be done.

Madrat, as a company is driven to create stimulating games for children to help them grow in a wholesome manner. When we came across the problem of Autism, we thought of doing something and it was late in 2012 when we started thinking about a solution. We collaborated with M K Belmonte, a professor of Cornell University, who works on autism technology and a few other luminaries in the space to come out with this app (see press coverage on Indian Express). After more than a year of hard work, we’re ready with the app that has been launched for the iPad.

Autista helps children improve verbal and fine motor skills. Helping kids with speech and touch coordination, Autista takes a different approach that focuses on long term skill building. The app has to be more than a tool for instant communication. Autista has various puzzle modes ‘speaking syllables’, ‘typing words’ and ‘dragging pieces’. Some of the key features of the app are:

• ‘Speak’ mode to help in verbalizing
• ‘Type’ mode to teach keyboard typing
• ‘Play’ mode to join parts for motor skills
• The only App to combine these different modes
• 5 Themes with over 100 learning objects
• Fully customizable for each child’s needs
• Amplitude modulation
• Graded vocabulary with curated words and pictures

Autista was awarded the Game of the Year – Special Mention Award at NASSCOM Gaming Forum 2013. The app is on iPad and can be downloaded for free from the App store.

Download Link: Autista