For this week, I picked two apps from the Apple App store that fell under the category of kids ages 6-8. The cool thing I learned right off the bat is that the app store has a huge selection of different categories to divide their content, and the kids category under “Top Charts” is further subdivided by age (5 & under, 6-8, and 9-11) and by paid, free, or top-grossing.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/02/12/dr-pandas-restaurant-2-is-app-stores-new-free-app-of-the-week/
Dr. Panda’s Restaurant 2 was number 1 on the free chart. The graphics are very bright and bold and almost look 3D. The premise is that you are the panda chef who cooks meals for his animal friends. First, I cooked pasta, which included dumping the pasta into the pot, stirring, draining, and plating. Next, I was given choices of add-ons, and when I touched each one, the hippo outside the window either shook his head yes or no for approval or disapproval. From that, I gathered an egg, a purple eggplant, and a lemon. Then we went back to the kitchen and I had to choose how to cook these. At first I put the eggplant on the stove just to see what would happen. Usually a check box appears when you have correctly prepared the food and that didn’t occur. I switched out the eggplant for the egg, put the eggplant in the stove, and pulsed the lemon in the blender. I then combined these three with the pasta, added salt and pepper and tomato sauce, and brought it out to the hippo who seemed happy and made a burping noise. The same sort of process occurred for other customers. One dish seemed very strange to me: a combination of zested lemon, boiled carrot, and pulsed red pepper, but the character had a positive reaction. After your customers eat the dishes, you put the dirty plates away, and you collect their coins.
I surprisingly really enjoyed this game. There were never any instructions which I realize is important though because it is playable for non-readers. It’s deceptively educational by teaching basic cooking skills to make a variety of different foods using a range of ingredients, tools, and techniques. It’s also good for younger kids because they can learn to read social cues like the nodding of heads. The most important element of the game is the absence of scoring or time limits, which really emphasizes fun experimentation over competition. Kids would also be attracted by its visual salience and the calming, tropical music playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp5J4jgx9as
Olaf’s Adventures showed up tenth on both the free chart and the top-grossing chart. Basically, the user guides Olaf around his wintry hill to collect 10 snowflakes. To do so, I had to complete challenges or tasks, like dodging snowballs from Avalanche or impaling Olaf’s head. There were two wooden post labeled “Spring” and “Summer” with lock images, and when I clicked that, it said “grown-ups only” and had spelled out three four two six; the user would then have to enter the numbers 3426. I thought this was a clever way to protect kids from accessing the content requiring purchase. I’m disappointed though that you could not fully immerse yourself in the game without paying for these add-ons which parents might especially be turned off from. I was never actually able to find all 10 snowflakes and would have found that frustrating as a child. Of course, the best part of this app is the silly snowman character from Frozen that kids (and even my friends!) obsess over. This commercialism would entice children right away, but I think the app itself is not exciting or easy enough.