There are so many apps out there now, and too many of them are for the big brand names. Here I’m reviewing the most fantastic apps I have found for kids that are from independant publishers, and have a wonderful unique quality that the others lack.
#1 A Fine Musician
Cost: $2.49 AUD $1.99 USD £1.19 GBP
Some shameless self promotion here. This is the first app made by Tokeru. Lucy Thomson wrote it during a writing course for childrens stories run by Libby Gleeson at the University of Sydney. It’s an original and unique story, illustrated by hand on paper and converted to digital. The design was created specifically for the ipad app. Originally it was a lot more simple, but after testing on numerous children and noting their expectations, more and more responsive interactions were included.
We have some free promo codes to give away. Be one of the first to email us and we’ll send one to you.
See a short video of A Fine Musician on YouTube.
Screengrabs
# 2 Time Geeks: Find All!
Cost iPhone : $1.19 AUD $0.99 USD £0.59 GBP
Cost iPad: $2.49 AUD $1.99 USD £1.19 GBP
I don’t know a kid that doesn’t like search and find games, but when the items are hidden in the same place every time, the game just looses it’s appeal. This is the curse of 99% of ‘find it’ games, but not with Time Geeks. We have a lot of these games, but my daughter only returns to this one…over and over again. It is one of the best value for money games we have.
Not only do kids love it, adults do too. Great graphics, loads of levels, loads of items per level. The difficulty does increas pretty quickly, and a three year old probably won’t go much past level 4, but the fact that the hiding places change each time, means that the gameplay is always fresh.
Get the full run down on the game from the Time Geeks Website
Check out a video of Time Geeks for the iPad.
#3 Scoop Shoppe – Ice cream matching game for kids
$1.19 AUD $0.99 USD £0.59 GBP
This was one of the first apps we bought to have a look at. From that point on we could not pry the iPad out of our 3 year olds hands. She loved the game and played it constantly for 2 weeks. Really, what could appeal to kids more than icecream, chocolate topping and sprinkles.
She had a wonderful time and was completely unawares of the invaluable lesson of pattern recognition and replication that she was learning. She mastered it pretty quickly though and I think she would have liked more levels, but still she will return to it regularly. It’s well worth the small amount of money they charge, and for an audience of 2-3 year olds, it’s a great game.
Simple, clean interface, easy to navigate and strong feedback for users actions. It’s made by Jackson Fish Market, and they have a host of other similarly focused apps. Go check them out..now!
#4 Eliss
$15.99 AUD $4.99 USD £2.99 GBP
An oldie but a goodie, Eliss was one of the first games we bought for the iPad. Initially just the Lite version, which is no longer available, but then we quickly upgraded to the full version, it is just that good. I became quickly addicted to is, as did our three year old.
It’s not a game designed for kids, especially not toddlers, but they can easily play the first 3-4 levels, then the adults can take on the rest.
The music is beautiful and calming, the graphics are elegant and simple. The gameplay is intuitive and fun using the multitouch functionality. Built by Steph Thirion you can find out all about Eliss on the website.
Looking on iTunes it seems this is the only app by Steph, which is a great pity, we’d love to see some more!