Sabi

Do you know why the flowers in your ItzaBitza ™ garden aren’t growing? It’s because you haven’t drawn the sun yet! And why isn’t your ItzaBitza avatar, Sketchy, inside the house you drew? Because there’s no door! Children’s drawings, creative problem solving and reading comprehension skills take center stage with ItzaBitza, an award winning, mouse driven PC drawing game for early readers, ages 4+. 

The characters in ItzaBitza, called Sketchies, have needs and wants that are expressed through sentences within thought bubbles.   The sentences increase in richness and complexity as children advance through five themed playsets which include a home site, camp site, haunted house, outer space, and farm playset.  To help new readers, all words in the game can be read aloud in a child’s voice by moving the cursor over a word. When children do this, the word turns red, gets bigger, and then is spoken aloud so that it is easy to follow along For example, in the home playset, the Sketchy needs a house, so Sketchy brings up a thought bubble asking children to draw one. Their creation, complete with windows, roof and a door is magically animated and the Sketchy can walk up to the door, open it, and walk into the house. Furniture appears in the windows and, incredibly, players see their Sketchy inside of the house that they just drew. The Sketchy will even adjust to the size of the house, so the size of the Sketchy and the house are always to scale. It’s truly jaw-dropping! 

As children play, stars appear.  These are called “Star Challenges.”  Children click on the Star Challenges to collect them.  Children can read what the challenge is by moving the cursor over the star.  All words in a Star Challenge have word help to provide children with just the amount of help they need in order to move forward in the game, thus gaining the positive self-esteem that comes with completing difficult tasks all by themselves.  The star turns gold when children complete a Star Challenge.  There are many Star Challenges in each playset.  Children do not need to complete them all, but if they complete enough, they will earn trophies and unlock new playsets.

The Star Challenges in ItzaBitza are designed to challenge a player’s critical thinking and problem solving skills. One Star Challenge in the home playset is to pick five purple flowers. If there’s no sun drawn, there will be no flowers. Then, once the flowers grow, the child needs to know to pick the purple flowers. If they find only three purple flowers, they’ll have to discover that tapping the sun creates more flowers. By exploring and some trial and error, players eventually complete the task. 

ItzaBitza is intended for early readers, ages 4+.  The game has won many prestigious awards such as the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, The Toy Man® Award of Excellence, and The Children’s Technology Review Editor’s Choice Gold Medal.  Sabi, Inc. has recently released a sequel game, ItzaZoo™ where children are empowered to create the objects needed within the playsets for the most adorable animal Sketchies.