Hi Product Hunt, I’m Olga. I spent 13 years building apps and thinking about retention, session length, and how to bring people back. Then I became a parent, and those same design decisions started to look different. I’ve felt ashamed handing my son an iPad. Even giving him something to do on a flight made me feel like I was failing as a parent. But an iPad is a tool. It can hold a book, a drawing pad, a puzzle. What matters is what we put on it and how that content is designed. Opening children’s apps, I kept noticing familiar engagement mechanics: flashing rewards, constant animations, sounds celebrating every tap, and another invitation to play the moment an activity ends. Even some apps labelled “calm” seemed determined to keep my child tapping. I wanted something I felt comfortable giving him. An activity he could enjoy at his own pace, without every interaction nudging him to keep going. So I built Denny, a quiet maze app that works offline. Children follow paths, solve puzzles, and move on when they’re ready. There are no streaks, coins, or flashing rewards. I’m used to measuring whether people stay. With Denny, I’m thinking about what makes an app worth using and easy to leave. If you build products, or use them with your kids, I’d love to hear how you think about that.

Denny's Maze

A kids’ app built to be put down

A kids’ app built to be put down