Klee Art

Art History Made Easy with Digital Tools

Klee Art App Icon

Roland Zoss’s children’s book as an accessible iPad app

“Klee Art” brings the stories about the Klee Fairy and the painter Paul Klee to tablets as an interactive gaming experience. Together with Swiss children’s book author and songwriter Roland Zoss, we’ve developed an app that gives preschoolers a playful introduction to the world of art.

Client

Our services

  • UX & UI Design
  • Software Engineering
  • Deployment
  • Interaction & Game Concept
  • Game Development

The Challenge

Printed children’s books thrive on being read aloud by adults. On the iPad, however, children should be able to discover the stories and illustrations on their own. Since the target audience, preschoolers and early readers, cannot yet read, traditional menu structures, text instructions, and familiar UI elements were completely eliminated.

Bitforge’s task was to create an interaction concept that offers children maximum orientation and a sense of self-efficacy without the need for outside reading assistance, while avoiding frustration caused by confusing buttons or overlays.

The Concept & the Solution

Bitforge transformed the book into the concept of a digital, walk-through museum wall:

  • The walk-through gallery: After launching the app, children select a painting directly from the wall and are drawn right into the picture. Each work of art forms its own self-contained game module with gameplay mechanics tailored to the story.
  • “Listen to UI” – Voice Control: Instead of static buttons, the app uses the principle of voice-activated controls. The protagonist, Sophie, reads out action options aloud. The speech bubble (e.g., “Let’s dive into the adventure!”) appears simultaneously on the screen and serves directly as a tap trigger. Hearing, seeing, and acting merge into a single, simple gesture.
  • Art as an interactive space: Paul Klee’s works were not simply incorporated as flat reproductions. Their color spaces and forms provide the backdrop for the individual games. During the development process, supplementary graphic assets were created with AI support and precisely tailored to Klee’s historical style.
  • Audio integration: The app features audio in both German and English throughout. All voice recordings and musical elements come directly from Roland Zoss.

Technology

The cross-platform framework Flutter, in combination with the Flutter Flame game engine, was used for development. State management via Riverpod allows for a clean separation of the individual game modules (1 image = 1 module), so that additional paintings or interactions can be added flexibly.

The user interface deliberately avoids distracting system controls or visible menu bars to keep the screen free of distractions.

Download the app now

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