- A counting game wearing a kitchen: the same number stands in three places and stays equal all the way through
- That is conservation — a quantity surviving being moved and changed, the thing Piaget's water glasses are about, except the child did the moving
- So the numbers are on screen throughout rather than as decoration, and the end says it out loud: 11 and 1 make 12, the number you started with
- Not every kernel pops, because a real pan always leaves some — and the ones that stay are counted honestly rather than quietly deleted
- Tapping an old maid shakes it and says why — a tap that did nothing at all reads to a small child as a broken screen, the same lesson as the frog game
- The verifier caught the big cob packing its end rows 8.5% apart — close enough that two kernels read as one — and the taper was loosened
- Play-tested at 390px: 12 picked, 11 popped, 1 stayed, and the end card says 11 + 1 = 12 · no console errors
- All seven pieces painted: the bare cob, three kernel shades, a popped piece, the pan and the striped tub — no SVG left
- The cob was repainted fatter to match the kernel grid, then paled so the golden kernels read against it
✓ = done · ☐ = planned. Every game is built one step at a time like this.