Zen Koi 2 helps kids practice and improve the following skills:

Planning

Developing a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals.

This game can be simply feeding the koi amoebas and nothing else. But if a player truly wants to advance the game, they need to use their planning skills. First, the player has to be aware of and plan out what amoebas to eat in order to expand the pond. If they don't plan this out, they will still be able to eat and level up, but their pond will stay small and make it harder for the koi to ascend to being a dragon. Also, every time a koi levels up, the player has the opportunity to allocate skill points. If they don't have a plan on how to use these points, they will end up with either unbalanced koi or koi that do not help them achieve other goals (such as collecting all the koi possible). Over all, a player who does not use both their long-term and short-term planning skills will be unable to fully unlock all the different types of koi or receive all the trophies.

Self-Awareness

Understanding our own actions, thoughts, and feelings.

Another thinking skill that the game practices is self-awareness. While swimming around, the player has to be aware of several things. There are red plants that temporarily hurt and slow down the koi. There are some amoeba that latch onto the koi and slow them down--and must be removed by using the green plants. There's also the fact that in order to eat the proper combination of amoebas, the player must be watching the koi's surroundings in order to find and eat them. And, finally, they need to be watching for other koi and paying attention to where they swim in order to make new koi. If the player isn't being self-aware of where they are swimming and what they are eating, they won't be able to expand the pond or create a wide variety of koi patterns.