Gnome Gnolf
A downloadable game
Gnome Gnolf is a mobile augmented reality puzzle game, designed as a playful introduction to spatial geometry transformations for middle and high school students. The game is played by holding up a smartphone to view 3D game levels, which are anchored in real space using AR technology.
Players swing their smartphone (or tablet) to putt a ball through “Gnolf” courses – an analog of golf in the gnome world – while directing gnomes to conduct geometry transformations to reorient obstacles and navigate the ball to its hole. Each gnome specializes in a specific geometry transformation, including translation, rotation, and reflection. Gnomes can also use their magic to walk up walls (they aren’t limited to horizontal planes) while moving objects.
Learning Goals
Some students struggle to develop an interest in math or see why it’s worth learning. Gnome Gnolf focuses on rigid transformations in geometry as simple, intuitive concepts with real-world analogs. The game encourages students to reimagine their relationship with learning math, and prioritizes playful aspects of geometry to strengthen curiosity, interest, and real-world transfer.
Students typically study geometry on paper or flat screens, creating abstract barriers to 3D understanding. We leverage AR’s affordances of spatial reasoning and embodiment to make these concepts intuitive to more students. Players translate objects up into the air and rotate them from different perspectives using conceptually grounded gestures, such as physically rotating the phone to conduct transformations.
Awards & Presentations
2026 GEE! Award Finalist
Serious Play 2026; August 5-7, Duke University Reimagining Math With Embodied Play In Mobile AR (30 min presentation)
Research
Research Questions
- How can AR games be designed to increase positive affect towards math and geometry and learning geometric transformations?
- How does the scale of the AR game in physical space affect the experience?
Full report to be uploaded soon!
Team
MIT STEP & The Education Arcade
- Dan Roy: Lead Designer, Lead Researcher
- Sharleen Loh: Designer, Researcher
- Jack Lewis: Designer, Developer
- Jonathan Bowman: Lead Developer
- Greg Peterson: Developer
- Student Developers: David Xiong, Isa Lie, Luis Dilone, Marilyn Fang, Miriam Suarez
- Eric Klopfer: Principal Investigator
MIT Game Lab
- Philip Tan: Project Manager; Concept Development
FableVision Studios
- Gary Goldberger (President and Co-founder): Creator, Concept, and 3D Models
- Sarah Ditkoff (VP, Strategic Partnerships): Concept Development
- Christina Kelly (Senior Designer): Character Designs
Download
Install instructions
Gnome Gnolf is playable on Android devices (phone, tablet, etc.). Minimum OS 7.0 (Nougat).
Downloading Gnome Gnolf
- Enable Unknown Sources on your device
- Settings > Apps > Special app access > Install unknown apps
- Select the app (e.g., Google Drive, Chrome) that you want to download Gnome Gnolf’s APK from
- Toggle ‘Allow from this source’ on
- Download Gnome Gnolf.apk on your phone. It should appear as an openable app on your device.
- Open the Gnome Gnolf app. Enable Camera access when prompted.
How to Play
- Use the Level Select menu to choose a Course.
- When playing a Course, you can use the Back button to go back to the Level Select menu.
- Look around the course by walking around or angling your device.
- Swing your device to putt the ball with the virtual putter attached to your device camera.
- Tap the gnomes to call them over as needed.
Gnome Gnolf is a research prototype developed by the MIT Education Arcade, in partnership with the MIT Game Lab and FableVision. Some features are still in development.
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