This month, attempt to save the planet while balancing competing needs in the new digital card game Beecarbonize. Draw and color cute animals and vehicles then watch them come to life in Drawing games – kids coloring. Explore the planet you hopefully saved earlier with the informative Earth 3D – World Atlas. Finally, engage in a very different take on traditional chess with kingbit.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Beecarbonize
By Charles Games s.r.o.
Beecarbonize is a game for older kids that puts you in charge of dealing with climate change. You must balance the competing needs of the economy, population, environment and science, all the while attempting to limit pollution and deal with disasters. You do this by buying policy cards in the four areas with each card generating (or reducing) resources and pollution. New cards must be purchased with the resources you generate, and disasters will happen (most often caused by your policies and pollution) that must also be mitigated with those precious resources. Be warned that this is not always easy. Balancing everything is difficult and often things will spiral out of control towards ecological collapse. While Beecarbonize is a game and certainly not a simulation, it was developed in consultation with climate experts, and offers a thought-provoking and sometimes scary look at environmental issues.
Drawing games – kids coloring
By Bimi Boo Kids Learning Games
Drawing games is a bright and cheerful colouring book app. Kids choose from many different categories from animals to vehicles to robots. They app then leads them through several steps to draw what they chose, and finally they can colour it in. Kids can’t colour outside of the lines, so the drawing steps should be relatively easy even for even younger children. The colouring section includes simulated markers, pencils, wallpapers and erasers. Once finished, the colouring page is set against a backdrop and animated. Each category has several free colouring pages, but most are locked behind a subscription. Additionally, several colours and wallpapers require the subscription as well. You can try the app for free, or activate a free trial to unlock all features.
Earth 3D – World Atlas
By Igor Panichev
Earth 3D presents our planet as an interactive kid friendly globe. The default view contains country and city names plus hundreds of landmarks (although these are densest in the United States and Europe). Kids can tap on anything to see images and find out more information about the building, city, country, area, and even continent. The globe moves smoothly and easily, zooms in and out, and can be configured to show or hide different features to reduce clutter or focus on a particular aspect. More aspects including world cultures, animals, plants, and maps of the sky can be added with separate in-app purchases. Earth 3D is a colourful way to explore the world for kids interested in geography.
kingbit
By Bracket Ltd.
Kingbit takes chess and adds a couple of twists. While it contains all of the usual pieces such as pawns, knights and queens, the app lets piece take up more than one square on the board. For example, a pawn can cover two squares, and a rook can cover up to five squares at once. This means pieces can more easily block opposing pieces from moving across the board. Secondly, when a piece goes to take another, it removes squares from the defending piece instead of removing it instantly. These two changes turn chess into a different mental challenge. Kingbit is for iPhone only, and the graphics are clean but utilitarian. It offers a unique take on chess and will stretch your brain in new ways.
