About us

Illumination Development, L.L.C. is an independent app developer, and we ship in lines. The games are the busiest: seven in the stores and seven more on their way. All of them can be played in this website, and none has anything to buy.

The tools do one job each. Handyman Calc adds feet, inches and fractions the way a tape reads them, Househand keeps track of the jobs a house needs, and more are on their way, a row counter for knitting among them.

The reward apps are four, built around one idea: take something you already do, like reading a fact, taking a walk or finishing a task, and pay you a little for doing it. They are one line of the company, not the whole of it.

Community Stress First Aid is the oldest thing here and the odd one out. It is a reference app for stress and crisis situations, and it has been on the App Store since 2011. We rebuilt it in August 2026 because the old version still listed a suicide hotline number that 988 had replaced four years earlier. It pays nothing, carries no advertising at all, and collects nothing about anyone. Its own privacy policy says so.

Who writes this

James Krupnik — founder of Illumination Development, L.L.C., and the person who writes the apps, this site, and every article on it. There is no content team here and no agency. The same person who wrote the redeem screen wrote the page explaining what it pays.

Most writing about reward apps comes from affiliate sites paid a commission on every install they send. That makes an unflattering sentence expensive to write. We are paid nothing to recommend anything, so the arithmetic on what these apps actually pay can say $2.00 and weeks to months, depending on the optional videos. It’s true, even if it doesn’t sell anything.

You can find me on GitHub, or reach a person directly through the contact page.

What we build

Twenty-three things, all free, and no two of them on quite the same terms. The seven games have nothing to buy, so they are games and nothing else. The four reward apps pay out in coins you redeem for real cash through PayPal. The twelve tools pay nothing, and their ads differ. Community Stress First Aid has no advertising in it. Househand, a home maintenance tracker, carries one banner ad. Handyman Calc, a construction calculator, carries a banner and the occasional full-screen ad. Chess Clock & Scorepad carries a banner everywhere but the running clock, and Initiative Tracker, a combat tracker for game masters, keeps its banner off the tracker itself. Card Lab, a trading card maker for kids, has one banner on its home screen and none while a card is being made. Dead Center, which measures a trading card’s centering from a photo, never shows its one banner while a card is being measured. Covert Mail teaches Morse code and classical ciphers, with one banner on its desk and none during a mission. Practice Proof, a music practice log, puts its one banner on the home screen and never shows one while it listens. Let Them Pray, a prayer list for every faith, keeps its one banner under the list and never where you write or pray. Which Formula tells a math student which method a problem needs, with a banner on the home screen and the method pages and none on the questions or the drill. Low Tide Explorer, a tide pool guide and low tide planner, puts its one banner on the Tides and Logbook tabs and none on the shore guide. The tools section lists them with the ones still on their way to the stores.

Every count above is a count of apps you can install. That leaves some games out. The games section lists fourteen, because that is how many games there are.

Ship It is an idle game about running a small app studio. It has no store listing on either platform, and the browser version is the whole of it. Bramble Knight is an early version, coming soon to the App Store and Google Play, and it plays in the browser until then. Five more are in the same place: Wobble Wheelie, Tilt Duo, Hoverline, Mix a Beast and Sizzle Swap, coming soon to both stores, and all of them playable now in the arcade. All fourteen games play there, including Slap Pile, a card game for two to four round one phone.

Two more apps are on their way, and neither is counted in the twenty-three. Apps That Pay, an earnings tracker, is coming soon to the App Store. Stitch Keeper, a row counter for crochet and knitting, is coming soon to Google Play. Both can be used in the browser until then, with no ads in either: try Apps That Pay or try Stitch Keeper. Like the games, neither pays anything.

The two stores don’t carry the same set. Twenty-one of the twenty-three are on Google Play. Learn And Earn went first in August 2026, and the other reward apps followed in early September. Then came Community Stress First Aid on 23 September, Househand and Handyman Calc on 30 September, and Chess Clock & Scorepad, Initiative Tracker, Card Lab, Broadside, Slap Pile, Dead Center and Covert Mail in October, then Let Them Pray and Practice Proof, and Low Tide Explorer in November. Seventeen of the twenty-three are on the App Store. The newest is Acorn Trail, on 7 November 2026, after Which Formula on 4 November, Card Lab on 22 October, Let Them Pray on 21 October and Practice Proof on 20 October. Before them came Covert Mail on 19 October, Chess Clock & Scorepad and Initiative Tracker on 17 October and Househand and Handyman Calc on 15 October.

Two are on the App Store and not on Google Play yet: Which Formula and Acorn Trail, whose Play listings are on their way. The rest of the gap runs the other way: Peel Frenzy and Pie Cannon are on Play with no iPhone version yet. Apple didn't approve Pie Cannon 1.0. Broadside has no iPhone version in the App Store yet, and neither do Slap Pile, Dead Center and Low Tide Explorer. On Apple's side everything runs on iPad except Step and Earn, which counts steps and so has no business on one.

• Taco Rain: Catch the Tacos — sixty seconds of catching falling tacos. No coins, no cash-out, and nothing to buy.
• Peel Frenzy — a hundred fruits, one strip of peel each, and a tension meter that treats a yank as harshly as a wobble. Google Play only for now.
• Asteroid Duel — two ships on one screen, for two people sharing a phone or fifty levels alone. It has coins in it, and they buy a spaceship rather than becoming money.
• Pie Cannon: Carnival Shootout — fifty stalls down a fairground midway, three goals on each and a prize teddy you lose a ticket for hitting. The stars it pays are never spent on anything. Google Play only for now.
• Acorn Trail: Otter & Goat — an otter and a goat who both have to reach one burrow, over sixty turn-based puzzles, alone or two on one phone. Acorn coins buy looks for the meadow and nothing else. App Store only for now, with Google Play to follow.
• Community Stress First Aid — seven sections of guidance for stress and crisis situations, with 9-1-1 and the 988 Lifeline above all of it. No coins, no advertising, and nothing collected.
• Househand — the jobs a house needs, when each one is due, and what each one cost. No coins and one banner ad.
• Handyman Calc — feet, inches and fractions added exactly, with sixteen material calculators beside the keypad. No coins, and ads.
• Chess Clock & Scorepad — a chess clock for two on one phone that can also keep the scoresheet and share the game as PGN. No coins, and a banner off the clock. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Initiative Tracker: DM Tools — turn order, hit points and conditions for a fifth-edition-compatible tabletop game, with 675 stat blocks from the two SRDs. No coins, and a banner off the tracker. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Card Lab: Trading Card Maker — make your own trading cards, front and back, with stickers, drawing and photos, and print them at real size. No coins, and a banner on the home screen only. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Dead Center: Card Centering — photograph a trading card and measure its centering, front and back, before you pay to grade it. No coins, no AI grade, and a banner that is never on screen while you measure. Google Play only for now.
• Covert Mail: Morse & Ciphers — learn Morse code by ear and fifteen classical codes and ciphers, then send a coded message to a friend. No coins, and a banner on the desk only. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Practice Proof: Practice Log — a music practice log that counts only the minutes it hears an instrument or singing. No coins, and a banner on the home screen only. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Let Them Pray: Prayer List — a prayer list for every faith, in your own words and kept on your phone. No coins, and a banner under the list only. On the App Store and Google Play.
• Which Formula — tells a math student which method an Algebra 2 or trig problem needs, and leaves the working to them. No coins, and no banner on the questions or the drill. App Store only for now, with Google Play to follow.
• Low Tide Explorer: Tide Pools — a field guide to 68 Pacific Northwest tide pool animals, with NOAA low tides, alerts and a stamp logbook, all working offline. No coins, and no banner on the shore guide. Google Play only for now.
• Learn And Earn: Daily Quiz — nine question cards a day, one per category, plus a ten-question quiz.
• Step and Earn — automatic step tracking that turns everyday walking into coins.
• Play and Earn — a retro arcade space shooter paying a coin for every level you clear.
• Todo and Earn — a to-do list that pays you a coin for every task you finish.

You can see all of them on our App Store developer page, or on our apps page.

How we are funded

Advertising, and nothing else. We don’t sell subscriptions or charge for downloads, and we never ask a user to pay anything before withdrawing. Advertisers pay to reach people, and a share of that is what becomes your coins.

Househand and Handyman Calc carry ads like the games. One app is outside that arrangement entirely. Community Stress First Aid carries no advertising and funds nothing. It costs us a little to keep on the store, and that is the whole of it. A banner under a screen asking whether someone is thinking about killing themselves is not a trade worth making.

It explains why the apps behave the way they do, which is why it’s up front. We have written up the mechanics in detail on how rewards work, and the economics of the category more generally in how free reward apps make money.

How we approach rewards

• We lead with where the money comes from. Plenty of apps in this category bury the advertising and present the coins as generosity. Ours is the whole business, so you should hear it first and from us.
• The thing the app is for pays without an ad. A claimed milestone, a finished task, a cleared level, a revealed card: each pays its coin on its own, and you can decline every video and still cash out. Declining them all is slower.
• No pay-to-withdraw, ever. If an app asks you for money before letting you take money out, it is not one of ours.
• Your balance is visible. The app shows what your coins are worth and how far you are from cashing out.

Privacy

Twenty-two of the twenty-three show advertising, which means ad networks are involved and some data is collected. Our privacy policy sets out exactly what that covers, in those apps and on this site. It also says how to request deletion of your data. Househand also offers an optional sign-in, and it has a policy of its own. So do Handyman Calc, Chess Clock & Scorepad, Initiative Tracker, Card Lab, Broadside, Slap Pile, Dead Center, Covert Mail, Practice Proof, Let Them Pray and Low Tide Explorer.

The twenty-third, Community Stress First Aid, collects nothing at all: no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, no account and no server. Its App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected. It has a policy of its own too. The shared one discloses ad networks, and that would describe collection this app can’t do.

Getting in touch

A real person reads support mail. For app problems, reward questions, or partnership inquiries, use the contact page or email support@illuminationdevelopment.com. For data access or deletion, privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com reaches us directly.

We usually reply within two business days.