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Hold It, Quoll!

Stopping yourself: tap the quolls that are awake, and let the sleepy ones sleep

Ages 3-7 Attention and impulse control Free, no sign-up

Play Hold It, Quoll! More in The Dusty Red

How it plays

Spotted quolls pop out of burrows one at a time. An awake quoll bounces with a big "!", and your child taps it. A sleepy quoll lies down under a moon with "z z z" and a soft snore, and the job is to hold still and let it sleep. That pause is the skill: stopping yourself when your hands want to go. Later levels add more sleepy quolls, a quoll that peeks out before it decides (wait and see!), and a little less time. Nothing is ever lost: tapping a sleepy quoll just makes it yawn, and a quoll that gets away comes back later. Each sleepy quoll left to sleep puts a star in the sky. With a keyboard, Space taps.

What it's for

Stopping yourself: tap the quolls that are awake, and let the sleepy ones sleep. Your child sets the difficulty on the first screen — how fast things move, how many there are — so the game meets them where they are rather than deciding they aren't good enough.

There is no score to lose, no timer running out on them, and no way to fail. A level ends when it's won. That's the only way it ends.

What it practises

Stopping yourself. Waiting, and holding back when your hands want to go.
PSC Self-management (General capabilities, Personal and Social Capability); EYLF 1 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
Paying attention. Keeping focus when the easy answer is the wrong one.
PSC Self-management (General capabilities, Personal and Social Capability); EYLF 1 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)

The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for three- to five-year-olds) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.

What it costs, and what we collect

Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.

A quoll in a burrow was bright as a star, And another one snored like a squeaky old car. So tap all the wide-awake quolls that you see — But the sleepy ones? Hold it! And let them be.

Where it lives

Hold It, Quoll! lives in The Dusty Red — attention and impulse control. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.