This month go on an emotional fantasy adventure exploring loss and hope with the remarkable Lost Words: Beyond the Page. Play with Mickey and Minnie in a world of Duplo blocks in Lego Duplo Disney. Learn about, watch, draw, and play games with your favourite Marvel heroes with Marvel HQ. Finally, get in a little times tables practice with Multibuddy.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Lost Words: Beyond the Page
By Plug In Digital
Lost Words is a stunning, atmospheric, and emotional adventure game. Izzy, a young girl, wishes to be a writer and her grandmother encourages her to keep a journal of her life and to write stories. Players move both through the journal and the fantasy world she creates, running, jumping, and cleverly using words to interact with the world. None of the puzzles or jumping sections are very difficult as the true heart of the game is the story itself. Izzy must deal with the loss of a loved one, process how it affects her and those around her, and find hope. It’s a powerful, emotional story, told through the journal and through the fantasy world, with high-quality art, music, and narration. You can play the first two chapters for free, with an in-app purchase unlocking the remaining six.
Lego Duplo Disney
By StoryToys
Lego Duplo Disney invites kids to play with Mickey and Minnie Mouse (and friends) in a world of Duplo blocks. Kids choose from several play packs themed around boats, trains, castles and a café. Each pack comes with different play areas containing a wide assortment of activities. Kids can have Mickey go fishing, build a boat with blocks, make a cake, ride a carousel, count candles, or just play with the characters and use their imagination. There are tons of things to tap on and move around with the world responding to the child’s actions. Graphically, the app does a great job of depicting building blocks against colourful backgrounds. Characters are three dimensional rather than the usual paper cutouts, and, in a nice touch, walk or run when moved around. Blocks click together in a satisfying way, and behave in ways you expect. In fact, being able to build things out of blocks is a great addition to this style of app, and it would be great to see that expanded into more of the areas. Kids can access the Mickey’s Boat play pack for free, with additional packs requiring an in-app purchase or a subscription.
[Link to Lego Duplo Disney on Apple App Store]
I received a complimentary promotional code to review this app.
Marvel HQ
By StoryToys
Marvel HQ offers books, videos, game and activities for young fans of Marvel characters. Kids can choose early reading books featuring their favourite heroes and the power to tap on a word to hear it spoken. They can watch videos that teach them how to draw the characters, or even craft their own super gear out of real world materials. There are profiles of the characters, colouring pages, short videos of animated versions of the heroes, and jigsaw puzzles. Kids can chase the Green Goblin in a simple lane-based game featuring Spider-Man, and surprisingly can solve pre-coding puzzles with the Hulk. There’s a good amount of content already in the app, with the promise of more being added. Marvel HQ lets kids trying a small number of things in each area for free, with a subscription (and free trial) to unlock all content.
I received a complimentary promotional code to review this app.
Multibuddy
By Daniel Springer
Multibuddy is a simple times tables quiz app. Kids choose a table from 2 to 9 and are presented with a quick text-based quiz that asks if numbers are divisible by the table they chose. After several correct answers, or four incorrect ones, the quiz ends and the app gives you a score. There are also a set of tips to quickly decide if a number is divisible by another number. Multibuddy isn’t flashy, but it is a different take on the times table app, as well as being fast, solidly designed, and (currently) free of advertising.
