Maomi Stars App – Upgrading to V3 – Migration guide for Parents
Last Updated 15 April 2022
The version you will be upgrading to on the iOS App Store is labelled v3.0.0 (or above).
Key Changes to Inform Your Child
Many changes have been implemented in this version and to make sure that the changes in the game incentives don’t end up catching your child by surprise, please do walk through it with them before you upgrade the app:
- Introduction of New Character – Old Wizard Cat: We introduced an old wizard cat with a hoarse eldery voice. He is the 師傅 (kitty master) of the 7 kitties and will guide the kids through the game. For new players, he will introduce himself. But for existing players, he won’t have a chance to introduce himself so please let your kids know that if they hear this elderly voice, he is the wise old cat master and there is no need to be scared!
- Playroom Goodies:
- Old: In past versions of the game, you earn star coins by practicing words and then inside the Kitty Playroom, you can exchange coins for food or experiences for the Kitty. You can also collect cakes when you reach square yellow crystals in “sweet rewards” but those cakes had no real function.
- New: In the new version, food and experiences can no longer be purchased with star coins. Instead, cakes are rewarded at random every time you complete a word and food/experiences are rewarded at random every time you click on a yellow crystal. These are all added to your “Rewards Library” and can be consumed by dragging to the Kitty in the playroom.
- Migration: For migrated users, we will pre-populate the “Rewards Library” with some number of cakes, foods and experiences based on your child’s game play history so far so they won’t start empty.
- Starcoins:
- Old: In the past, starcoins were used for purchasing items in the playroom, which will be changing as explained above.
- New: In the new version, starcoins will be required to unlock new worlds. (around 100-250 per world).
- Migration: We recognize that there are many children who have completed hundreds of words but might have used up all of their starcoins so will have no way to get into the islands. Therefore, we will top up your child’s starcoins based on their historical game play so if they have learnt a lot of chinese characters already, they can go straight into unlocking worlds.
- Yellow Crystal:
- Old: In the past, there was an option to play a speaking game on the yellow crystal and bypass having to complete each of the 5 words preceding it.
- New: In the new version, we have deprecated this game and the yellow crystal can only be retrieved if the 5 words prior to it are completed (turned black). And clicking on the crystal will provide a surprise reward that can be consumed in the playroom.
Key Changes for Parents
- Multiple Players per Account:
- Old: Previously, if a family had multiple children playing the game, they needed two separate Maomi Stars accounts using two separate email addresses and had to keep logging in and out to switch between the two.
- New: In the new version, a single Maomi Stars account (using a single email address) can support up to 3 players. In the screen called “Manage Players” you can add or delete players and access each player’s individual settings. You can even set a “player code” which enables one child to protect his/her own account from siblings without having the parent be involved.
- Migration: We will need to manually merge all of the old accounts into the primary account. We will ask you to provide us with a list of all email addresses of accounts that need to be merged and identify which single one you would like to use moving forwards.
- In-App Purchases / Gated features:
- Old: Previously, each word collection had to be paid for separately (or unlocked for free using a class code).
- New: In the new version, we have completely changed the monetization model to a monthly subscription model. We will be providing free 12 month access to silver tier membership to all customers who have paid for a word collection.
- Silver tier unlocks all word collections (some hidden word collections like sagebooks are only visible for testing using class codes).
- Gold tier allows access to the islands (water world is open but all the rest are closed to non gold tier members.
- Gold plus tier allows a single account to be used for multiple children.
- Teacher / Educator Functionality:
- Old: Not supported
- New: In the new version, we have exposed some features for teachers/tutors/educators to create their own word collections and class codes. It’s still quite new but if you are an educator and you would like to be a tester for these features, please contact us and we will activate that for you. It looks like this. Basically turns one of your player accounts into a teacher account.