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Foldit

By University of Washington Center for Game Science and partners. Visit Foldit

Desk research from the maker's own pages. Not yet tried by us. Checked 2026-10-24.

A free puzzle game, now 18 years old, in which players fold and design proteins on screen to help real biochemistry research. Players twist chains of amino acids into shapes that score well, compete on puzzle leaderboards, join teams and share scripts called recipes. An Education Mode teaches protein basics for classes. Player discoveries have been published in Nature with players credited. It is a desktop download and is quite hard for young children.

Our take: A rewarding challenge for science-minded teens and biology classes; younger kids will likely find it too hard, and parents should note the public chat.

The facts
Ages it suitsabout 12 and up (terms allow 7+)
What its terms say about ageYou must be 7 or older. Under-18s need a parent or guardian to read, explain and agree to the terms, since play is part of a research study. (terms)
PriceFree. Free and not-for-profit (Oct 2026).
Works onWindows, Mac
AccountThe child's own account
AdsNone
In-app purchasesNone
The AI in itNo AI for players; puzzles test how humans and computers work together on protein problems.

What's good

  • Real science with credited discoveries
  • Free with no ads
  • Education Mode for biochemistry classes
  • Strong puzzle-solving challenge

Watch for

  • Public chat and forums with adults
  • Gameplay data used for research
  • Steep learning curve
  • Relies on university servers; a recent outage took it offline

Data and privacy

Gameplay is recorded for research and may be published or shared with scientists; accounts store an email address. Chat and forum posts are public, and public chat may be logged to watch for abuse. Read the privacy policy.

Does it work?

Foldit players' work has been published in peer-reviewed science, including a 2019 Nature paper on player-designed proteins. We found no study on what children learn from it.

In the Big Index

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Where these facts come from

Prices, terms and features change. Nobody paid to be listed, nothing here is an affiliate link, and Peabody never rates itself. Where we and the maker disagree, the maker's own pages are the ones to trust.