Academics
Bug Hunt
A garden full of sleeping bugs — and every leaf can be opened by thinking, never guessing. Bug Hunt is a friendly no-guess Minesweeper for early readers: each number counts the bugs touching its square, and three simple clues (count them, all-found-means-safe, no-room-left-means-bugs) clear every garden. Stuck? Pebbleback the beetle shows you which number to look at — you still make the move. New garden every day, no timer, no score to chase, on-device, no account. Ages 6-8.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 15 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, asks, and patiently scaffolds learning.
Mentored by Pebbleback
#3F8F4A Characters who teach
Meet the cast
Bug Hunt's garden crew each embody one clue of logical deduction — the crew IS the reasoning. Nibbin counts the bugs touching a square. Leafa opens the rest once a number's bugs are all found. Scuttle spots when there is no room left, so every hidden leaf is a bug. Mentor Pebbleback, the wise old beetle, asks which number you can be SURE about — and never makes the move for you.
Nibbin
Counts the bugs touching a square — a number tells how many sleeping bugs are next to it
Leafa
Opens the rest: when a number's bugs are all found, every other leaf around it is safe
Scuttle
Spots when there is no room left: as many hidden leaves as bugs means every one is a bug
Pebbleback
asks which number you can be sure about, then lets you make the move
What's inside
Learning goal
A garden full of sleeping bugs — and every leaf can be opened by thinking, never guessing. Bug Hunt is a friendly no-guess Minesweeper for early readers: each number counts the bugs touching its square, and three simple clues (count them, all-found-means-safe, no-room-left-means-bugs) clear every garden. Stuck? Pebbleback the beetle shows you which number to look at — you still make the move. New garden every day, no timer, no score to chase, on-device, no account. Ages 6-8.
Mentored by Pebbleback — no data leaves the device.
How Bug Hunt handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ Free — no ads, no in-app purchases
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ No chat with strangers — play-together rooms use a short code and preset emotes, never typed messages
For you, the grown-up
The grown-up side of Bug Hunt on Spark & Whetstone, our free site for grown-ups: The Daily Table. The same no-guess Minesweeper, made for grown-ups — then play Flags together.