GabLibs isn’t just another word game — it’s a voice-first experience built from the ground up for kids. In this post we’ll walk through the features that make it work and explain some of the design decisions behind them.
The Story Flow
Every GabLibs session follows the same simple loop:
- The app speaks a prompt — “Give me an animal!”
- The child says a word — “Hippopotamus!”
- The app confirms — “Did you say hippopotamus?”
- Once confirmed, the word slots into the story
This cycle repeats for every blank in the template (usually 8–13 prompts per story). When all the blanks are filled, the app reads the completed story aloud while highlighting each word in real time.
Voice Confirmation
If the speech recognizer is highly confident (above 70%) it auto-accepts the word and moves on. When confidence is lower, GabLibs asks the child to confirm with a simple yes or no. This keeps the experience flowing without frustrating pauses.
Fallback Text Input
For noisy environments or quieter kids, there’s always a keyboard fallback. A small text field appears below the microphone button so words can be typed manually if needed.
25 Prompt Types
GabLibs doesn’t just ask for “a noun” — it asks for specific, kid-friendly categories that spark imagination:
| Prompt | Example |
|---|---|
| Animal | Penguin |
| Color | Sparkly purple |
| Food | Pizza |
| Silly word | Bloop |
| Body part | Elbow |
| Sound | Whoooosh |
| Emotion | Giggly |
| Superpower | Invisibility |
| Verb (-ing) | Dancing |
| Exclamation | Holy moly! |
There are 25 prompt types in total, each with its own friendly voice instruction so the child knows exactly what kind of word to say.
Story Playback
Once a story is complete, the playback screen brings it to life:
- Text-to-speech reads the entire story aloud
- Word highlighting follows along in real time so kids can see which word is being spoken
- Auto-scrolling keeps the current sentence visible on screen
- Play/Stop controls let kids pause and resume whenever they want
The child’s contributed words appear highlighted in the story text, making it easy to spot where their silly answers landed.
Saving Stories
Every completed story can be saved locally on the device. The saved stories screen shows:
- The story title
- The date it was created
- A one-tap replay button
Kids can build up a library of their creations and revisit favorites anytime. Stories can also be deleted individually when the library gets too full.
Story Categories at a Glance
Each category has a distinct color so kids can quickly find what they’re in the mood for:
Animals — Orange adventures through jungles and safaris
Holidays — Pink celebrations full of festive chaos
Places — Purple journeys to impossible destinations
Nature — Green explorations in the wild outdoors
Jobs — Deep orange careers with hilarious twists
Food — Amber feasts with ridiculous recipes
Designed for Little Hands
Every screen in GabLibs follows a few key rules:
- Large tap targets — main buttons are 280x120 pixels, impossible to miss
- Bold text — headings start at 28px and body text at 20px
- High contrast — dark text on light backgrounds with bright accent colors
- Rounded corners — 16–24px border radius on every card and button
- Minimal navigation — no more than two taps to start a new story
The microphone button is a 160px circle that changes color based on its state: blue when idle, red when listening, orange when the app is speaking, and green when a word is confirmed.
What’s Under the Hood
GabLibs is built with Flutter, which means it runs natively on both Android and iOS from a single codebase. The voice features rely on platform speech services — speech-to-text for capturing words and text-to-speech for reading stories. Story templates and prompt definitions are stored as structured JSON, making it straightforward to add new content.
All story data is cached locally using Hive so the app works offline after the initial content download. Premium content packs are managed through native in-app purchase APIs with a parent gate to keep kids safe.
Try It Yourself
GabLibs is available now on Android and iOS. Download it, hand your phone to a kid, and get ready to hear some truly absurd stories. We promise you’ll laugh too.