Scenes from Ladybug Number Count -- Left: tap to count; Right: tap the quantity

Picky Kid Rating: 3.5

Ladybug Number Count is our new favorite counting game for kids ages 2 and under. We love the photography, and the playful way the the ladybugs “hide” (just barely) makes them irresistible for young toddlers. The downside is that this feels like a “baby game”, so older kids (ahem, three and a half year olds) may find it too simple.

When you first start the game, you’ll be greeted by three ladybugs who invite you to count in English (American), French or Spanish. Tap a ladybug to hear which language you’re selecting (it’s written too, but that doesn’t help kids who can’t yet read). When you’re selected a language, tap the big green arrow to go to the next screen. Two more ladybugs march on screen, and you’ll decide which game mode you want to play. The choices are “Touch the ladybugs” or “Touch the number that matches.” Pick the one you want by tapping it, then tap the big green arrow to start playing.

You’ll see a photo with some ladybugs in it, and a narrated instruction, e.g. “How many ladybugs are climbing the mountain? Touch the number that matches.” But don’t start tapping right away! You’ll need to wait for the scene to “zoom in” to a closer crop where you can see the ladybugs more easily. Unfortunately, there’s some load time here, and the loading icon is tiny and in the bottom right of the screen, so it’s not obvious that anything is going on. But eventually, the next scene will load, and you’ll see several adorable ladybugs crawling around.

What you need to do depends on what game you selected earlier. In “Touch the Ladybugs” or Counting mode, tap each ladybug. When you do, a voice-over will count, and the numeral representing that number will appear. Numerals will stay on the screen until you’ve counted all the ladybugs. (Look out, some of them might be trying to hide!) You’ll know you have it right when the voiceover repeats the last number and state something to the effect of “There are four ladybugs building a robot.” Then you’ll get the green arrow to go on to the next scene.

If you’re playing “Touch the number that matches” or Number Recognition mode, things work a bit differently. You’ll see three numerals at the top each photo, and your goal is to tap the number that corresponds to the quantity of ladybugs in the scene. If you pick the wrong number, you’ll be gently told “There aren’t that many here” or “There are more ladybugs than that here”. When you pick the correct number, you’ll get a green arrow in the lower right to go on to the next scene.

Tapping the gold arrow in the upper left will take you all the way back to the home screen, where you can reset your language and game mode. There’s also a “grownups” area on the home page, which includes instructions on how to use the app and support info. You must tap the gold arrow to leave this screen, and it’s a bit annoying because the whole home screen animation restarts when you do. It better if you could simply tap off this screen and return to the home screen the way you’d left it.

For the most part, this app is nicely designed. We love the use of photography and stop-action style animation for ladybugs in the various scenes. We love the way the ladybugs move around — it’s not too fast, but give some visual interest to toddlers and is even somewhat realistic — just like they’d be trying to catch an ant on the ground. We like the fact that it’s sometimes a bit hard to see all the ladybugs at first. They have a tendency to hide a little bit, especially behind the shovel in the sandcastle scene. Since we’re picky though, we’d like it if the number of ladybugs in the introductory photo matched the number of ladybugs in the scene. The introductory photo for the hopscotch scene quite obviously shows five ladybugs, but when the counting scene appears, there may be 2 or 10, or anything in between!

We think the voiceovers could be improved. The voices (adult females for all languages) are fine, though a bit dry and teacher-like. Nice enough, but not particularly warm or engaging… But what really bothers us is the choppiness. Sentences are spliced together from different samples, making things sound a bit robotic at times, for example “There are.” “nine.” “ladybugs.” “playing hopscotch.” There’s also no emphasis given to numbers while counting, so kids don’t get the benefit of an excited pause when they’re nearly finished. Other sounds are used sparingly in the game, and there’s no background music.

Currently, Ladybug Number Count is quite limited — it counts only up to ten, and there are only five different counting scenes. And you only get to count ladybugs. Because of this, preschoolers or more experienced toddlers may get bored. But this app could be a huge hit with the nearly-two crowd.

Since it appeals to the very youngest audiences, this game would be better with a simplified user experience. We’d suggest pulling the language and mode settings onto the “grownups” screen so that parents could set the game once, and then toddlers could simply play without going through the various steps to set the game up.

Overall, Ladybug Number Count is a very nice app for toddlers learning to count up to ten. Its appeal wanes for older kids expecting more complex activities and more depth. But this is a good value for $0.99, and it won’t annoy parents too much.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid review. No fees were paid.]

Scenes from You and Me: We're opposites -- Left: the story; Right: the activity

Picky Kid Rating: 2.9

In You and Me: We’re Opposites, young kids can learn fourteen different pairs of opposite words by listening to an interactive book, watching a music video, and playing a simple game. The opposites are illustrated by brightly colored animals, and while this simple app has some weak points, it also has some charm. …and for better or for worse, the song is pretty catchy!

When you first open the app, you’ll come to a home screen where you’re greeted by a big elephant and a little lizard. Appropriate, right? Because big and little are opposites! From the the home screen, there are four different options for kids to play, and two areas for adults to explore, an i icon for info, and a more slide-out tab for more apps. Oopsies! None of the links in these areas are protected, so your toddler can easily tap to a web site or the app store. Luckily, these icons are less compelling than the four options  that are intended for kids.

There are two book-reading options, Auto Play or Read to Me. Both narrate the scenes (unless audio is turned off… more about that below), but in Auto Play, the pages advance automatically, while in Read to Me, you control them by tapping blue arrows on the bottom left or right of the screen. Each scene has a few interactive elements, mostly resulting in simple animations or repeated voiceovers. During reading, you can pause the scene by tapping the “bookmark” in the upper left. This will display a menu where you can return to the home screen, pick a page, go to the music video, play an activity, and toggle narration and/or background music. The narration toggle doesn’t work well in Auto Play mode — we could only get narration to turn off for one page; when the next scene appeared, the narration was back.

The story (if you can call it that, there’s no real plot…) is pretty cute, as animals at a zoo compare themselves to one another. Lots of things are compared, including color, size, mood, speed, and how much stuff they have. We feel sort of bad for the monkey who has no bananas that scene. At the end of the book [spoiler alert] all the animals fall asleep and the zookeeper says “I’m awake, they’re asleep!” When it’s all over, you can choose to read again, hear the song, or do the activity.

The song is essentially a music video, and it plays in the default iOS video player, which feels like a bit of a disconnect from the rest of the app, but once the controls fade back, it’s pretty enjoyable. The song is a bit over a minute long, and retells the book with music and animation. Karaoke-style subtitles are a nice touch to help kids make the connection between reading and hearing words. …and the catchy tune will likely get stuck in your head.

In the activity, the idea is to pair up animals with opposite characteristics. In each scene, one animal will be in an enclosure, while three others are outside. The enclosed animal will state something like “I’m big” or “I’m slow” and your job is to drag the animal with the opposite characteristic into the enclosure. You can tap each animal to hear how they describe themselves to be sure you have it right, a good thing because just because something is dirty doesn’t mean it can’t also be dry! Putting the wrong animal into the enclosure will prompt an “Uh-Oh” — get it right and and you’ll get a cheer and the two animals in the enclosure will repeat their comparisons, e.g. “I’m clean”, “I’m dirty”. There are a few awkward moments with the voiceovers… if you tap and drag an animal into the enclosure, the voiceover will be cut off by the next sound effect.

There are only four scenes in the activity, and they are always in the same order, making it feel repetitive and limiting. If you don’t like a certain scene, you may advance to the next one by tapping the blue arrow in the lower left. However this arrow doesn’t work after you’ve made a correct pairing… In that case, you just need to wait for the scene to auto-advance.

Speaking of auto-advance, it’s a bit slow… Actually, most transitions seem a bit slow. In some cases, the delay is just long enough to wonder if you need to tap again. Another hiccup in user experience is this app’s dependency on lots of written prompts. For example, when you start the activity, there’s an informational screen showing you what to do. It’s really not necessary each time. Also, when you select one of the reading modes, you’ll usually have to choose whether to “Restart” or “Resume” the story (unnecessary since it’s so short and there is a way to access all pages anyway), And when the story or activity ends you’re given various written options. It would be more logical to simply return to the home screen, which has the same options and is what happens at the end of the music video anyway.

We like the illustration style in this app. It’s a flat, graphic style with a nicely consistent color palette. We also like the talking-bubbles and the type in them. Unfortunately, the animations are not as well-done. They’re choppy and the timing isn’t very refined. The music and voiceovers (in American English only) are generally good and not too annoying. And, we admit it, we really like the song!

Overall, You and Me: We’re Opposites is a decent, yet limited game that teaches comparison concepts. Expect to help younger or less experienced tablet users navigate this one until they get the hang of it.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid review. No fees were paid.] 

Scenes from Dino Park Math: Solving math problems and dinosaur facts

Picky Kid Rating: 2.5

In Dino Park Math, kids can help a young paleontologist open a new dinosaur exhibit by solving math problems. It’s a conceptual stretch, but it just might motivate elementary school aged dinophiles (is that a word?) to practice addition and subtraction. The math problems are too difficult for pre-K kids, but there are six simpler activities that younger kids can play, once they figure out how to get to them.

When you first start the app, wait! Because the screen goes black for a bit after the loading sequence. Eventually, you’ll come to a home screen where you’ll meet junior paleontologist Pete. He gives a brief verbal intro about what to do and encourages you to tap “Start Adventure”. Before we do though, let’s see what else we can do from the home screen… There are three large rocks with the words START ADVENTURE, DINOSAUR GAMES, and DINOSAUR FACTS, and two smaller rocks reading MATH TABLE and MORE APPS. Unfortunately, the More Apps area is not protected — kids can easily enter the App store by tapping into this area.

The Math Table is an addition table showing all possible sums for numbers from 0 to 10. To get sums, you must tap the arrows pointing to the numbers on the top and left, and bars will appear that intersect at the sum. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to drag the bars around to move them! This would be a nice feature to add (plus, it would help kids understand that there are lots of different ways to get the same result when doing addition).

OK, on to the fun stuff (because it would be a stretch to put Math Tables in that category)… First, you should know that to get back to the home screen, you can (usually) click the Dino Park sign. It’s normally in the bottom right of the screen, but on the Math Table page, it happens to be exactly opposite that, in the top left.

Assuming you’re on the home screen, and you can read, tap the rock marked Start Adventure to get to the Dino Park, where fifteen fossils are sitting along pathways, just waiting to be cleaned up by you and your friend Pete. Tap one, and you’ll be presented with an addition or subtraction problem that you must solve to chip away some of the rock and reveal the fossil. The problems involve numbers up to 20, and there are no quantity clues given that would help a younger child count it up. But the answers are multiple choice, and it doesn’t take too long to get the right answer by trying all three. You’ll get a gentle “try again” message for tapping the wrong answer, and correct answers are rewarded with some hammering on the fossil. Plus, Pete will say something nice, like “Sensational!” As you finish unearthing the fossils, they’ll appear in the park exhibits.

If your three-year-old is getting tired of answering math problems wrong, you can get back to the home screen by tapping the Dino Park sign. Tap Dinosaur Facts to hear (and read) facts about fifteen different dinosaurs. Tap Dinosaur Games to get to five other dinosaur-related activities, including:

Puzzles: Drag and drop dinosaur bones into their correct places on a fossil. It takes a keen eye, because some bones look a lot alike! It helps that the pieces are already scaled and rotated correctly.

Create a Scene: Move dinosaurs around in scenes from the Jurassic or Cretaceous. We expected the dinosaurs to rotate and scale with two-fingered actions, but they don’t.

Matching: Drag and drop a dinosaur onto the correct outline (similar to a “peg puzzle”).

Memory Match: The classic card-flipping memory game with 14 cards.

Connect the Dots: Tap the dots in order to complete the picture.

To access the games menu from the activities, you can tap the Games Menu sign in the lower right, though some activities have an extra level of navigation, in which case you must first tap the arrow icon in the upper right. This icon is confusing, it looks more like a “reset” button than a “back” button.

The voiceovers in this app (American English only) are pretty good — they’re friendly sounding without being overly affected… and there are a lot of them. Try tapping various things in the game; most likely you’ll hear a narrated response. There is some very subtle background music on the home screen that fades as soon as you start playing. There are no options to turn sound on or off, but it’s really not necessary.

The illustration and design is so-so. The Pete character is cartoony and cute, and seems incongruous with somewhat realistic-looking textures in the fossils. Many of the graphics have pixelated edges or feel like they’ve be over-enlarged a bit (on non-retina display, even). The design of the math problem screens is overly complex (it includes Pete, a fossil, a pterodactyl silhouette, some savannah trees, grass, eggs with numbers on them, and some weird “rips” out of the sky to make a hole that reveals the math problem), which makes it difficult to know what to do at first glance. Throughout the game, there are at least three or four different fonts used and it’s kind of an odd mix. Animations are minimal.

Dinosaur Park Math has a few bright spots — if your kid loves dinosaurs, there are a wide range of activities that could keep them busy for a while. We also like the fact that every time a number is tapped, it’s reinforced with a voiceover. But it is not intuitive to use and depends too much on reading for navigation. Bottom line? Meh.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid Review.]

The two "keyboards" you can play in Piano Ball. The stars are telling us what key to play for the selected song.

Picky Kid Rating: 2.2

In Piano Ball, kids can attempt to play simple songs on a brightly colored keyboard-like device. The “Ball” in the app’s name refers to the way that you select songs and styles by spinning things that look like ping-pong balls, which is a fun and innovative way to navigate… a bright spot in this app that’s not likely to turn kids into concert pianists — unless it’s improved, at least.

When you open the app (or return to it, since this app does not save your “spot”), you’ll see a splash screen with a cute little animation. When that’s complete, you’ll come to a home screen, where you can select between two different styles of “keyboard”. There are a few other more subtle things to tap on the home screen, including a heart (to get support for the app or to email a friend), the developer’s logo (to visit their Web site), and an i button for info and settings. The heart and the logo require a 1-second tap and hold for access, a good thing to keep kids out of these areas. It’s a bit strange though, that you have to tap and hold the icon to get back to the home screen. A simple tap would be more intuitive, not to mention quicker!

The info/settings screen is worth a mention — it has a lot of information about how to use the app, including all the different actions you can do with the various balls. They’re rather complex — and you’d likely never figure it all out without reading these instructions. That’s a detriment for an app aimed at preschoolers because not all parents will take the time to read. The only true settings in the app are whether or not to display the tune title (um… if you don’t display it, you can’t tell what song you selected, so we’re not sure why this is an option), and a language selector for the voiceovers. You can pick English, Swedish, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, French or Polish. As far as we can tell, all are equally dull. The English version of the voice sounds computer-generated. (It’s harder for us to tell in the other languages.) Changing the language does not affect the song titles or the written instructions.

All right, back to the home screen… Tap a keyboard to start playing! You can choose one with wide keys in two rows, or a more traditional style with skinny keys in a single row. If you tap the Piano Ball logo at the top of the screen (very tempting because of that spinning ball!), you’ll automatically start playing the two-row keyboard.

Both keyboards have a set of four balls that serve as selectors for color, song, rainbow spectrum, and instrument. The balls are one of the coolest things about the app. You can spin them in their sockets to select what you want — this is a clever interface and it works pretty well. But the combination of things you can choose is a little strange, in our opinion. Since this primarily is a music toy, why bother with changing the color of the keys and saying “yellow”? Especially when there’s another way to change the color of the keys with the rainbow ball…

What you are probably going to want to do first is select a song. Do this by turning the second ball (the one with the smiley face or music notes on it) until you see the name of a song you want to play. Stars will appear over the keys you should tap to play the song. If you don’t know the song well (or even if you think you do!) you won’t get the rhythm right without some practice. When you’ve completed the song, you’ll get a cheer, and then the song will play how it’s “supposed” to sound. It would be nice if there was a way to play the model before attempting the song so that you had some idea of its rhythm.

There’s a special mode for song selection called “Toddler Mode” — you can select it by turning the second ball so that the green smiley face is showing. In Toddler Mode, it doesn’t matter what key is tapped, the correct note will be played, making a nicer-sounding song, even though the rhythm is still dependent upon the timing of taps. One odd thing about Toddler Mode is that you cannot select the song. Instead, when you complete one song, you’ll be automatically advanced to another. (Also, you will not hear the “model” songs played.) Another odd thing about Toddler Mode is that it starts with different songs in the two different keyboard modes, and it has an extra song (one with a Polish name that flashed by so quickly we could not write it down!) that you cannot access from the regular song-selection menu.

There are lots of things that you can do in the keyboard screens that are not obvious at all. For example, you can “lock” various features by holding down specific balls. Also, shaking the iPad will display an instrument on the screen, say its name, and then play a sample of its sound. I won’t be telling B about this, because a toddler shaking an iPad is even scarier than a toddler turning it around… Which, by the way, you will probably have to do, because this app doesn’t rotate with the accelerometer.

It’s quite difficult to get back to the home screen from the keyboard screens. There’s a back button in the upper left-hand corner, but it overlaps a key and when you tap it, you usually just end up playing that note. Through trial-and-error, we discovered that if you tap it twice quickly you will usually go back to the home screen. But there should be more separation between the back button and the keyboard to avoid this frustration.

In terms of design and sound, Piano Ball is a mixed bag. The color palette is bright and primary — helpful for engaging for young kids, and the elements, though somewhat simple, are well-rendered. The animations are generally quite good, but sometimes the transitions between scenes are a bit choppy. The instrument sounds are fairly good, but we would prefer a more realistic sounding piano — this one sounds more like a toy. The voiceovers for color and instrument names, are flat and dull (computer-generated, perhaps?), and so out of place that were were startled when we first heard one when randomly spinning the color ball.

This app feels like it was conceived and designed more as a way to showcase effects and animations than as a kid’s educational app. To use all the features of the app — in fact, even to select a song — reading is required. Younger kids can have fun experimenting, or playing in toddler mode if a helper sets it up for them, but may be frustrated by the challenging user experience.

All in all, Piano Ball is a music app that has some potential, but is hard to use in its current state. We’d like to see it simplified and made more intuitive for kids by adding more visual cues and changing some of the ball actions. For the time being, you’ll need to help your toddler navigate this one.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid Review. A small fee was paid to expedite this review.]

Scenes from Monkey Math School Sunshine: Left - Patterns; Right - Bubble popping!

Picky Kid Rating: 3.8

In Monkey Math School Sunshine, preschoolers can learn math concepts at the beach with an energetic monkey. We love the activities and concepts presented in this game, and it’s been a popular one in our house. It’s great she’s learning math, but we get a bit tired of the choppy and annoyingly enthusiastic voiceovers…

When you first open this app, you’ll come to a start screen where you’ll need to set up at least one player account. Up to three player accounts can be added, which is great for sharing this game with siblings or friends. The downside is that it cannot be played without setting up an account, so be prepared to help your child enter their name the first time.

There is a “For Grown Ups” settings area (protected by two finger swipe actions) which allows you to change settings for individual players via a “Player Settings” tab. You can turn music on or off (actually a global setting that affects all players), turn on or off various activities, and manually adjust the difficulty for each player, if desired. We use the game’s automatic difficulty adjustment, called Knack, that adapts the challenge level as the game is played, and it seems to work quite well. To get out of the settings area, tap the home icon in the top left. (BTW there’s no language selector, this game is available in American English only.)

OK, let’s assume you’ve entered the player’s name and are ready to go! A voiceover will prompt you: “Touch your name to play” — which of course depends upon the child being able to recognize their name when it’s written, or to remember the position of their name in the set of three “player” buttons. It would be nice to add a color cue to help kids remember which name is theirs (all players buttons are the same color right now).

Once you’ve tapped a player name, you’ll jump right into activities! There are ten different math-related activities that may be presented, depending on the player’s settings. These are:

• Quantity Recognition: Pop bubbles containing a quantity of objects
• Number Recognition: Pop bubbles containing a certain numeral
  (These are both called “Number Pop” on the settings screen)
• Addition/subtraction: Solve equations with numbers up to 5
• Connect the dots: Tap numbers in order
• Writing: Tracing numerals by following a model
• Shapes: Find the shape with the given number of sides
• Fill in the blank: Drag numbers into blanks to complete a series
• Patterns: Drag items into blanks to continue a pattern
• Less/More with items: Pop a bubble that has less or more objects
• Less/More with numbers: Pop a bubble with a number that is bigger or smaller
  (These are both called Less/More on the settings screen)

Activities are presented randomly, and a voiceover provides instructions for each activity. You must wait for the instructions, and for the game to be completely set up, before you can start playing. Depending on the activity, you will need to tap or drag to complete the problem. In most activities, it’s pretty intuitive, but on the Patterns, Addition/subtraction, and Fill in the blank activities, the answer must be dragged into its position. Once you figure this out, it’s a good thing; it allows kids to tap objects to hear what they are before making a selection. When you make a wrong choice, it’s not a big deal. Either nothing will happen, or the monkey (who’s visible in most activities) will shake his head and provide a gentle uh-uh. When you finish an activity, you’ll get positive re-inforcement: An encouraging word, flips by the monkey, or both. After three or four activities, you’ll win a prize for your aquarium — the equivalent of many kids app’s “sticker” reward system.

We think the activities in this app are great! There are lots of nice touches. For example, in the addition/subtraction activity, there’s a visual representation of the problem given below the numbers, so kids can count to solve the equation if they wish. We like it that this game focuses on both quantities and numerals. You may be asked to recognize the number 4 or a set of four. Also, in the bubble popping activities, a numeric counter keeps track of how many bubbles you’ve popped.

The illustration and design is a mixed bag. The monkey is cute, though a little cartoonish, and his animations are pretty good. The animation on the baby turtle, however, is somewhat awkward, as is the animation of the swash coming up the beach, mainly because it comes from the right side of the screen, which is not very natural feeling. The numbers are quite brightly colored, and we’re not crazy about the palette, but a good thing about these colors is that they’re used consistently — for example “3″ is always orange, and may help kids with number recognition.

The weakest part of the app, in our picky opinion, is the voiceovers. We find the voice itself (sort of a nasal and overly enthusiastic male voice) a bit annoying to begin with, but our real complaints are with the voiceover timing and its choppiness. There are times when it is difficult to hear the voiceovers because the monkey is saying oo oo oo at the same time. There are also times when the encouraging voice at the end an activity comes too quickly, overlapping another prompt. Also, there’s no way to repeat voiceover instructions if you didn’t hear them (written instructions may be on the screen, but that doesn’t help kids who can’t read yet!) The “choppiness” we’re talking about is the lack of fluidity in the voiceovers. It sounds like instructions were recorded in pieces, and when they’re put back together, they sound robotic, e.g. “You popped” “Six” “bubbles”, or “That’s right! A” “Triangle” “has” “Three” “sides”. The music is ok. It’s a somewhat caribbean-inspired loop that can get tiring, but is at a reasonable volume level. It can also be turned off in the settings.

Overall, Monkey Math School Sunshine is a good app for teaching preschoolers early math skills. As annoying as we find the voiceovers, they don’t seem to bother our picky kid. (Maybe she’s not so picky after all!)

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Lots2Spot by Hiyu2 Quick, find the wet walrus! Great, now find the purple paper clip! Lots2Spot is an adorable, fun and engaging listen & find game that teaches vocabulary, colors, categorization, and counting up to five in three different levels of age appropriate play for picky kids ages 18 months to 3+ years. Read Review

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Here's how (most of) the apps recently reviewed stack up!

The kids app roundup is here again! The Picky Kids share our App Review Roundup — how the latest apps we reviewed fared, ranked in order of their rating. (In case you’re wondering, we got our dates a bit out of order — the last app we reviewed, Little Genius, will appear in the next roundup!)

Scenes from Little Genius: Left - matching game from an easy level; Right - painting from a more difficult level

Picky Kid Rating: 3.3

Little Genius combines four pre-school friendly activities in a game that gets progressively harder. Kids must complete each activity in a level before they can move on. This style of progressive play makes the app different than a lot of other kids apps that offer similar activities… and can prove frustrating at times in this otherwise well-done game.

When you first open Little Genius, you’ll arrive at  start screen that shows an eager-looking kid/elf holding a book. He’s standing on a path in a pastoral scene with rolling green hills, a stream, and a few houses and trees scattered about. The temptation for B was to immediately tap the elf kid. This does nothing — to start the game, you’ll need to tap the signpost that says “play”. This is a fairly obvious second choice.

There are a few other tappable areas on the start screen, including a contact area (email form, facebook and twitter links), advertisements for the developer’s other apps (in two places… along the top of the screen and via a button at the bottom), a frog playing the guitar, and a settings icon (tacked onto the signpost). We wish it were harder for kids to access the contact area and advertisements. Tapping the frog will stop the music, and tapping the settings icon will allow you to reset the game (re-lock all levels). (I would be in BIG TROUBLE with B if I reset the game!)

All right — let’s start the game! When you tap the signpost, you’ll come to the home screen showing a sort of map… And our friend the elf kid will be standing on the first spot along a path. You’ll notice some treasure chests further along the path. Bummer… They’re locked and you can’t click on them. Click on the elf kid to play the first level of the game. This will start the activities.

First up: Memory matching! This is the classic memory game where the point is to turn over two matching cards. On level one, this is pretty easy because there are only six cards. You did it already? Great! You’re rewarded with a bit of horn fanfare, then the elf kid appears on the screen again with three options beneath him. You can replay (curving arrow on the left), see where you are on the map (dots and dashes in the middle), or continue playing (forward arrow on the right). The most obvious choice is to move forward.

Up next: Matching! In this activity, the point is to tap all the cards that match the one that wiggles. As you tap the correct ones, stars will appear on them. Tap non-matching cards and they fall off the screen. B would like to count the stars after completing this activity, but they’re quickly obscured by the elf kid (more time would be good). OK, onward.

The next activity is a drag and drop puzzle. The level one puzzle has just three pieces to put together. Finished already? I thought so.

The final activity in each set is coloring. The point is to paint the picture to match the example. You’ll need to tap your brush in the right color of paint, then onto the outlined picture to fill it in. When you’ve completed the painting activity, you’ll see an unlocked treasure chest instead of the elf kid. This means that you’ve progressed to a new level, and you’ll get a new set of four activities, slightly more difficult.

There are twelve levels in all. In the most difficult one, the memory matching and matching games have 20 cards each, the puzzle has 12 pieces and the coloring has 9 colors of paint and a lot of detail. This is a large range, and in some ways, it’s frustrating. B (3 and half years old) found the easy levels too easy, and blew through them as quickly as possible to get to more challenging material.

Once you’ve completed a level, you can return to it by tapping the corresponding (now unlocked) treasure chest on the map screen. To get to that screen, tap the “back” arrow (during play) or the menu icon under the elf kid or the treasure chest when you’ve completed an activity. It’s confusing to have two icons that do the same thing, and it would be better to use the same back arrow in both scenarios. The activities always start with matching, but if you’ve completed the level, you may select a different activity by tapping the icons at the top of the screen. A great addition to this game would be some sort of catalog of activities, a way to see and select particular activities that have been completed — B gets frustrated when she wants to play a certain puzzle because she has to keep tapping treasure chests until she finds the right one.

Something striking about this game: there are NO instructions. Nothing is written, nothing is spoken, there are no “tutorial” animations or anything. And there’s really no need for them. Despite the usability issues mentioned above, it’s pretty easy to figure out what you’re supposed to do.

Little Genius is pretty well done in terms of graphics and sound. The little genius (elf kid) himself is really cute, and slight animations give him personality. We love the pastoral background scenes. The animation effects for elements in the activities, such as cards flipping, are good, as are the sound effects. The artwork for the cards, puzzles and coloring pictures is not as special as the little genius character and the backgrounds. The music isn’t too obnoxious, but it can get repetitive. You can turn it off by tapping the frog usually visible in the top right of the screen. Sound effects will still play.

I have to admit, I expected a lot more fanfare when completing the last level. There was essentially no difference between completing the whole game and completing a single level. I thought we’d get to a new “land” or something since we’d managed to move our elf kid all the way down the path. But nope, nothing special happened. That was disappointing.

All in all, Little Genius offers good preschool activities in an attractive package. But its linear progressive play can be frustrating for some kids, and the game is limited by its twelve levels.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid Review. A small fee was paid to expedite this review.]

Scenes from Preschool Fun

Picky Kid Rating: 2.0

We try to purchase apps that we think will be good ones — that’s why you see generally positive (though, we admit, picky!) feedback in our reviews. Unfortunately, in the case of Preschool Fun, we failed. Preschool Fun has lots of learning activities that would be good for preschoolers, but it’s difficult to use, not great to look at, and has some majorly annoying audio bugs. Try the free version if you’re curious, but buyer beware…

Oh my, where to start? Let’s start with the positives.

Preschool Fun (when you purchase the full version) has lots of age-appropriate activities that can entertain and educate your preschool-age kid. To access them, you’ll first need to tap the arrow on the splash screen. Problem #1 of many: the arrow is fairly small and you must tap it precisely. You’ll come to a scene illustrating a classroom. Almost every element in the scene is interactive. Tapping some objects will lead you to activities, while others will animate around the scene. More differentiation between the objects which lead to activities and those that don’t, would make this screen more usable.

From the classroom scene (clockwise from upper left), you can:

1. Tap the spider to play with a spider. All you can do in this activity is watch the spider wander around its web, and tap it. Prepare to be startled when you tap it. Yep, too scary.
2. Tap the landscape picture on the wall to pop some balloons in a simple but pleasant outdoor scene. (Good for very young players, boring for everyone else.)
3. Tap the window to do some farm-animal themed puzzles. Then tap a white blob to start a puzzle.
4. Tap the chalkboard to learn the alphabet. Then tap on a letter to see how it’s written in upper and lower case, and for a letter-related interactive experience or animation. These are all different, and some are better than others. In C (for “crayon”) you can draw with colored pencils. We can’t make L (for “light”) do anything except show a black screen.
5. Tap the picture of the kid to spell your name and practice writing it.
6. Tap the piano, guitar or drum to play music on a piano. Your music will be notated as you play, or you can select from one of five songs (by tapping the stars — that’s rather obtuse!) to play. (Correction: there are actually only four songs because Au clair de la Lune sounds exactly the same as Ode to Joy.)
7. Tap the paint palette to do coloring activities — you’re trying to match the model shown.
8. Tap the number blocks to learn numbers. Then tap on an individual block to practice writing numbers and counting. The activities are different for each number and of varying quality.

From any activity, tap the orange “back” arrow in the lower left of the activity screen to return to the classroom. You may need to tap it twice if the activity has its own start screen.

That’s a lot of activities, and this would be a great app if they worked better, and had a consistent user experience! In addition to the problems noted above, here are some more:

• Numbers activity, #9. The last butterfly doesn’t disappear when counted so it’s not obvious that you’re “done”.
• Voicovers talk over themselves a lot — making it hard to hear. The worst culprit is the #3 activity, but many of the number games have similar problems.
• In several activities, particularly the coloring game, the tappable areas are too small, even for preschool fingers. This app would play better with a stylus. Perhaps that’s the intent.
• In the music activity, the Frere Jacques tune is played off-key and with the wrong rhythm. It sounds really horrible. We tried switching instruments to make it better. No luck.

The activity that works the best is the writing practice. You can get the name-writing practice in the free version of the app, but the rest of the activities will be limited. Before you purchase the full version of the app, take into account what we’ve said above, plus…

The visual style for this game is a total mish-mash. It’s not cohesive at all — it seems as if a bunch of folks (students, perhaps?) independently created various screens and animations, and they were all thrown together. Some illustrations are great, but others are really poorly done. The experiences and content are of varying quality too. Some are good, while others make you scratch your head.

The voiceovers, at least, are consistent. (Except for the one that narrates “zero” fingers on the #5 activity — where did that freaky voice come from?!) Occasionally the accent is difficult for American kids to understand, usually because the narrator is talking over herself. The other sound effects are fine, but mostly too loud compared to the voiceover.

Although we like the writing activities and the full version of the app has lots to do, we don’t recommend Preschool Fun. The bugs, user experience issues, and generally poor execution aren’t worth it. If you check out the free version, be prepared to say “no” to the in-app purchase when your kid starts hounding you for it.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid review. No fees were paid.]  

Scenes from Creativium: Left - exploring the scenery; Right - playing in the Magic Castle

Picky Kid Rating: 3.3

Creativium is a colorful and calm exploratory app based on the concept of a paper theater. If you’re looking for an app to engage in free-form imaginative play, or for a toddler simply to explore by tapping, Creativium is worth looking at. However, it’s likely to disappoint children who expect more structure in their games, especially in its current, partially-finished state.

When you first start the app, be patient! It can take a little while to load… Luckily, you get to look at a cute fox while it’s loading. Soon, soft, dreamy music will start playing, and you’ll come to a title screen. Photos of the fantasy world you’re about to enter float gently under the word “Creativium”. Tap the photos or swipe left to advance to the next screen, which shows a castle swinging from a string. Swipe again to see that there’s another world “Coming Soon”. Swipe back to the castle and tap it to start playing. Be sure to tap it, not swipe it!

After more loading, you’ll arrive at a friendly-looking pastoral scene, where stars and clouds float by a rainbow, flowers meander down a stream, and several animals expectantly gaze at you. Almost every element in the scene is interactive, start tapping to see what happens. Some things can be dragged as well. Scroll the scene left or right to explore and find different animals. On the far right side of the scene, you’ll find a castle. Tap it!

When you tap the castle, you can use it as a stage for the characters and objects found in a panel on the right-hand side of the screen. Drag and drop to put items on the castle. You can drag them around to position them, use a two-finger pinch or pull to make them smaller or larger, and rotate them with two fingers. Lots more objects are available than initially show in the palette… if you tap an object without dragging it, it will be replaced with a new object. There are about different 35 things that can be placed on the castle. And we say “on” the castle that’s pretty much what we mean. You can get characters to stand in front of the castle or on various balconies, but they won’t go inside.

To go back to exploring the surrounding countryside, tap somewhere in the sky or around the edges of the castle. This is not immediately obvious. In fact, the first thing I tried was a pinch motion! The first thing B tried was tapping the camera icon, probably because it’s in the upper left of the screen, where a “back” or home button is often found in other apps.

When you tap the camera icon, the scene will zoom out slightly, and you can take a picture by tapping the camera that appears at the bottom of the screen. You’ll see your picture on the screen after it’s been taken. It will also appear in your photo album. Tap it to return to your game.

From the castle or the landscape scenes, you can tap the night sky icon in the upper right to return to the main menu area. If you’ve taken any pictures, you can now access your photo gallery by tapping the pictures underneath the hanging castle. You can swipe through your pictures to view them, but careful! An errant swipe (or any tap off the photos) will close your gallery.

The game-play in Creativium is not directed at all — which for some kids could be really fun because you can tell your own story with the characters at whatever pace you like… But (for better or for worse) B expects more structure in her games. Several times she asked “What do you do?” and my answer, “Play however you’d like, or make up a story” wasn’t really satisfactory. This app would be more interesting for these type of kids if it included some more structured interactions — for example, if you could feed fruit to the characters after picking it. Or if the people in the castle scene would hold the guitar or sword.

We love the graphics in this game. They are friendly and engaging without being overly cute or too cartoonish. The color palette is rich and varied (and it’s a fantasy world, so  trees can be pink!). The animations, especially of the animals, are well done. Everything has a floaty, relaxed sort of feeling that lends itself to exploring in a leisurely way. We like the sound too. In the pastoral scenes, you’ll hear birds and bees, and the scurrying little footsteps of animals as they move about. There are no voiceovers (none are necessary) and there are no options or settings for this app.If you want to turn the sound off, use the iPad volume control.

In terms of content, there are a few things in the castle that could be frightening, like an ogre, a plunderer with raised sword, a fire-breathing dragon, and a pirate with a cutlass. But since you control the play, they don’t make any noise or do anything violent on their own accord. The content is a bit limited though. We’d love to see this game expanded more interactive items and areas to explore! On that note…

Creativium feels like an app half-finished. Not only is the nighttime world Coming Soon, but we can only find five characters in the castle (the description in the app store says there are 35! Including a “pink pony” — but where is it?). [Update: the current version of the app has 20 characters, including the pink pony, hooray!] As the app store screenshots say, “Buy now and wait for free updates”  – but the problem with doing that is if this partially-completed version doesn’t capture your child’s attention now, they may not be interested in returning to it when (and if!) the updates are released.

Bottom line? Creativium is a well-designed and calm free-play app that could capture the attention and imagination of 2-5 year olds. But you may want to hold off purchase until the second scene is finished, and more characters are added, which will offer a richer experience.

[The developer of this app requested a Picky Kid review. No fees were paid.]