Mole Holes

A calm game for toddlers and young kids

Mole Holes is a free game for toddlers and young children that runs in any modern web browser. A grassy field fills with round holes, and soft clay moles pop up one or a few at a time. Your child taps a mole, or clicks it with a mouse, and the mole wiggles, giggles and ducks back down. There is no hammer and no bonking. The moles are tickled.

I wanted something small kids can play without stress. So there is no timer, no lives and no score to beat. A missed mole simply goes back into its hole. A round ends only when your child presses the big Stop button, and everything earned is kept for next time.

Tickles turn into jigsaw pieces

Every four tickled moles earn one jigsaw piece. A small bar at the top shows the count, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, and when it fills there is a happy chime and some confetti. Now and then a rainbow mole appears, with marbled rainbow fur, and one tickle on it gives a whole piece at once.

The pieces build twelve hand-made clay pictures: Birthday Mole, Space Mole, Pizza Time, Rock Star, Beach Day, Super Mole, Garden Mole, Pirate Mole, Snow Mole, Dino Mole, Race Mole and Wizard Mole. The first picture has only six pieces, so a first finished puzzle comes quickly. The last has thirty. To place a piece, your child picks it from the tray and taps its spot on the faded picture. The right spot snaps it in. A wrong spot just wobbles the board, so trying again costs nothing.

Settings parents can adjust

Two big questions sit on the home screen. How many holes? goes from 10 to 25 on a computer or tablet and from 3 to 8 on a phone. Fewer holes means bigger targets for little fingers. How quick are the moles? has four speeds: Easy keeps each mole up for about five seconds, Medium about three, Hard about two, and Grown-ups mode for under half a second, which is mostly for parents who want a challenge.

The menu adds a Sound effects slider, a full screen switch and a short How to play page. The sounds are soft synthesised pops and chimes. Progress saves on its own in the browser, and the Start over button is small, tucked in a corner, and always asks before erasing anything.

Tablet, phone or computer

Mole Holes works on a tablet with a finger, on a computer with a mouse, and on a phone held sideways. If a phone is held upright, the game shows a friendly picture asking you to turn it. Nothing needs to be installed and there is no account. Progress stays on the device you play on, so a tablet at home keeps its own shelf of pictures. For tips on using it as part of a calm screen-time routine, the parents' guide covers holes, speeds and stopping points in more detail, and the pictures guide lists all twelve puzzles in order.