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[fourlittletesters]

Tested: Krakeln

#Developer: Claus Schunk

#Website: https://krakeln.eu/

#Purchase: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/krakeln/id1337094156?mt=8

#Version: 1.1

#Cost:  Free to play Demo, $0.99 to unlock all levels (at time of review)

Please note that we received a donation to review this released app.

#Support: Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#Size: 40.3 MB

#Screenshots:

#Developers Description

The family-friendly child's play for pre-school age without advertising!

Playful family game for learning letters, words and pictures.

The free multilingual app is designed to allow older children to learn foreign languages or to grow up in a bilingual environment.

The child-friendly application is characterised by the fact that there is no advertising in the application and complicated operation has been dispensed with.

A special feature are the ascending water bubbles with all elements of a level. The bubbles can be brought to bursting, so a lot of fun is pre-programmed.

Playful learning is suitable for primary school or preschool. Full offline capability eliminates the need for an active Internet connection during game play

Accompany Krakel on a journey with many adventures. There are some surprises waiting for you on your way. You will know them when they appear.

You will be able to name them when you see them.

But the most important thing is - you will learn to literally describe them.

Alone or together with your parents you will learn how to use the alphabet in a playful way. If it's too boring for you, you can prove what other language you've got. Soon you'll be playing in a league with the big players and maybe you'll learn something from them soon. Be ready, face the challenge and be ahead of others.

#The Review

Krakeln is a fun way to help your child with spelling in a super friendly ‘no-pressure’ environment. 16 great levels covering all aspects of life (Food, Clothes, Farm Animals, Sea Creatures, Music, Jobs, Transport, Household objects, Bugs, Safari, Wildlife, Colours, Vegetables and Fruit) with lots of recognisable visual clues to help the child solve the puzzles. The child gets to take their time, and if they make a mistake, it simply highlights the incorrect letter by flashing ‘red’ and allows the child to try again, thus building up to the answer, and seeing the finished word. At the end of the level, the child is presented with pictures in cute little bubbles for them to pop, before moving on to the next set of word puzzles.

The great thing about this spelling app is that it supports English and 3 other popular foreign languages (French, Spanish and German). The child is able to toggle to the country of choice and select and attempt the same puzzle sets. A heads up, parents will definitely get a chance to test their own language skills, whilst assisting their child to help with the translations. if all else fails, the child can work through the spelling in a trial and error wy, where the child benefits from seeing the completed word alongside the picture, which provides great language learning.

#The Test

This app was thoroughly enjoyed ‘lots’ by Poppy, and was a great way to challenge her spelling, which definitely needs improving. She enjoyed playing through all the levels over and over again, each level having a large set of cute illustrations with all the required letters available, yet all jumbled up, ready for her to solve the puzzle.

Poppy found the English words fairly easy, but there was definitely lots of challenging and fairly long words mixed within the sets. One of the best features of the app is that each time you load the puzzle set, you get a different order of the words, which provides a more enjoyable experience.

Now trying the foreign languages was a different story for both of us! I never was a great languages student, and we both had to focus hard to build out the words, and this is an area where the app definitely needs a helpful little feature adding that would highlight clues, like the ‘starting letter of the word’, as this was something that we struggled with German and Spanish.

Poppy found herself playing mainly in English, especially if I wasn’t there to help. Her favourite set of puzzles were what she called ‘under the sea’, which included lots of favourites (Sharks, Mermaids and Whales).

In its current form, the app is great, however, we would love to see the ability to toggle through the languages during play or even to be able to toggle the language of the completed word, allowing the child  to complete the word ‘Monkey’ in English, and then have the ability to display the word in French ‘singe’. That said it didn’t take anything away from our experience and Poppy’s enjoyment. I felt that the app was a big hit!

#The Verdict

‘Krakln’, a wonderful word puzzle app for pre-schoolers.

#The Rating

Overall: 5/5

Look & Feel: 5/5 - Delightful pictures and pleasing themes

Enjoyment: 5/5 - The ‘no-pressure’ environment and simple interface really encouraged repeat play with varying levels of difficulty.

Playability: 5/5 -  Easy for your child to navigate and plenty of sets and images to choose from.

Value for Money: 5/5 - This app is ‘free’ to play with a great demo, and only 99c to unlock all the levels.  

[fourlittletesters]

Poppy playing her favourite levels in ‘Krakeln’ ~ under the sea!! #appsforkids #kidsapps #kidapps #apple #ios #fourlittletesters #krakeln

[fourlittletesters]

Decisions, decisions, Poppy picking her next word puzzle in ‘Krakeln’ for iPad #appsforkids #kidsapps #kidapps #apple #ios #fourlittletesters

[fourlittletesters]

Tested: Heart Street Market

#Developer: Splashworks.com Inc.

#Website: http://www.splashworks.com/ http://www.hearts4heartsgirls.com/

#Purchase: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heart-street-market/id1216701349?mt=8

#Version: 1.1.0

#Cost: $2.99 (at time of review)

#In-App Purchases

Costumes Pack $0.99

Angel Costumes $0.99

Please note that we received a donation to review this released app.

#Support: Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#Size: 272 MB

#Screenshots:

#Developers Description

Go on a global adventure with four girls! Herd runner ducks, play soccer, make music with a kitten, catch raindrops, dance in the street with mariachi skeletons—and more! Shop in an exotic market and bring the girls’ neighbourhoods to life!

Heart Street Market explores the lives of Nahji (India), Rahel (Africa), Dell (USA) and Consuelo (Mexico). They need your help to make their dreams come true! Can you find what they need in the marketplace?

Heart for Hearts Girls is partnered with World Vision®, for programs that support gender equality, education, infrastructure, and humanitarian aid.

Features

Hours of exploring, collecting, helping, and playing around the world.

Game play patterns that girls love: making friends, collecting, personalization, and helping others.

Vibrant, illustrated graphics with exciting animations.

Music from around the world.

Fashions that can be saved and shared with friends. 

No ads to interrupt game play.

In-App purchases are optional, not needed for complete game play. (IAPs require parental gate confirmation.)

#The Review

Heart Street Market was a pleasant surprise, full of multi-cultural educational content, and very much themed around your child paying it forward by playing games to earn coins to spend on enriching the lives of others. By accepting missions to buy essential products and supplies you help all of the featured girls and their communities (India, Africa, America and Mexico)

The app takes the child on a wonderful journey across the world, opening their eyes up to different cultures, foods, produce and traditions. Based on the Heart for Heart Girls dolls, the characters are extremely well defined, each with their own character, dress style, their own stories to tell, and environments to share.  The child gets a lot of joy from this game through playing games, earning coins and completing missions, all to help the girls grow their community. For each set of missions completed the Child gets to ‘Level up’ at the same time watching the communities flourish as the new buildings and structures go up.  With great little snippets of information and some great imagery, this app was really enjoyed by the both of us. 

#The Test

Poppy had great fun playing all aspects of Heart Street Market, she had lots of laughs playing all the mini-games, she enjoyed looking around the market, finding the food and supplies to buy and completing the missions to help girls and their communities.

The ‘Dress Up’ boutique was a popular favourite for Poppy where she spent plenty of time mix and matching outfits and accessories.

The games were all pretty straightforward and simple enough to allow for her to enjoy some repeat play and achieve high scores, earning coins and levelling up. Poppy’s favourite game was helping Rahel ‘Kick it’ in Ethiopia, this was a game that involved dodging and weaving with a ball and shooting to collect tokens.

Poppy found the general App controls and interactions really easy to work with, and Poppy found it easy to navigate between the games and the marketplace, as the icons were big and clear. It took her a few attempts to locate the right market stall that sold the required food items that she needed to complete the missions, as it wasn’t initially obvious that you could scroll left for many more items.

The app was very rewarding for both of us, and Poppy enjoyed playing the games over and over and was really quite motivated to collect the necessary amount of coins to complete the missions. She enjoyed seeing the buildings get built section by section.

Poppy rated the app 8/10 fingers, which is pretty good, and she is confident that she will play again and again.

#The Verdict

Heart Street Market, a rewarding app, so vibrant and enriching.

#The Rating

Overall: 5/5

Look & Feel: 5/5 - Wonderful, really captures the vibrant colours and styles from around the world.

Enjoyment: 5/5 - Great Mini-games, good gamification and plenty of shops to explore, the ‘Dress-up’ boutique was a big favourite for Poppy.

Playability: 5/5 - The progressive missions made the App really interesting and kept the child wanting to play more games to earn more coins to help the heart street girls.

Value for Money: 4/5 - Lots of Games, Levels, Missions with constant progression

[fourlittletesters]

Choices, choices! Clothes shopping in Heart Street Market on the iPad #appsforkids #kidsapps #heartstreetmarket #ipad #ios #kidapps

[fourlittletesters]

Mission complete! Playing Heart Street Market on her iPad #appsforkids #kidsapps #heartstreetmarket #ipad #ios #kidapps

[fourlittletesters]

Poppy scoring to win! Playing Heart Street Market on her iPad #appsforkids #kidsapps #heartstreetmarket #ipad #ios #kidapps

[fourlittletesters]

Tested: Mobo Hide & Seek

#Developer: Mobo Kids

#Website: http://mobokids.com/

#Purchase: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobo-hide-and-seek/id1266611038?mt=8

#Version: 1.0

#Cost: $1.99 (at time of review)

Please note that we received a donation to review this released app.

#Support: Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

#Size: 84.5 MB

#Screenshots:

#Developers Description

It’s always a good time to nurture your child's curiosity. The perfect game for young explorers. Let’s play Hide & Seek. The aim of the game is to find different animals that are hidden in a huge house. While searching you can eat some vegetables, watch tv, play with a teddy bear or a train, have fun with some pink soak bubbles and much more.

Try to stay focused, but on the other hand - there is no stress and time limit… so - just enjoy! 

Is someone calling? Better check it out and pick up the phone. Mr. Parrot can have some important business to talk about :) 

And what about creating your own song by playing… the sunflowers? Yes, everything is possible in the Mobo Hide & Seek world. 

You notice an elegant hat? Don't hesitate to try it on! Or maybe a crown is more in your style:)?

Feel like drawing? Take a chalk and create something special. Your painting will embellish the house.

You can also ride on a rocking horse, take a ride on a slide or simply skateboard… possibilities are endless!

Hide & Seek is a very interactive game - click on the calendar and learn about the days of the week and month or just use the printer and learn numbers.

Key features:

Safe uninterrupted play - no in-app purchases or third-party advertising

No inappropriate content

No time limits. Kids play and learn at their own pace

8 different animals: Cool Parrot, Little Kitty, Joyful Dinosaur, Sneaky Racoon, Strong & Fit Rabbit, Elegant Penguin, Mr. Dog and Clever Fox

A huge interactive house with a basement and an attic - so many places to hide at

Toddlers can improve their perceptivity through fun

Learn numbers and calendar

App tested by kids - perfect for little fingers

Something for parents :) - cool, unique stickers!

#The Review

Hide & Seek was a little app full of surprises, on the face of it, it is a clean, creative, yet simple endless kids game, but once you start to explore you find so many little-hidden treasures. My favorite was the bouncing basketball, that you could throw to the side, and quickly run to catch-up with or you could throw high into the air, and run away as it kept bouncing.

The mini-games were fun too, counting games, a tricolor chalk board, and even a mini retro arcade game to name a few. Each of the little bits of furniture came to life, the printer spits out little-numbered sheets of paper, the calendar counts up the days and when the telephone rings, you can answer!!

The fun doesn’t stop there, you can pick up food and eat it, you can pop on a hat, or slide down a slide, the birds are always singing, but just watch out for those creepy spiders!

All in all, this little game is fun for all ages!

#The Test

Poppy had great fun playing Mobo Kids Hide & Seek, she started off fairly slow the first times she played, even missing some of the tiny little details and more than one fun mini-game. But what was great was that each time she played she found more and more, from the little dress-up, the games, to the fun interactive furniture, and props.

She enjoyed opening doors and creaky chests, she loved when a little tail poked out, or when an animal just peeked over something, hoping to be found.

Poppy gave the app a 10 1/2 out of 10 finger score, the highest ever!!! and definitely, wants dad to buy it. 

Poppy would have liked it if the characters each had different voices, and thought that it would be good if you could choose the room you wanted to start in and that it would be great to play outside and pick the different seasons, maybe hiding behind the sun, in a snowman or even under some rustly leaves,

Poppy would love it there could be a harder level, where there weren't so many characters, so you had a bit of a hard time finding them, and even needed clues, for a girl Poppy’s age, it was a little easy.

Poppy would love to see more characters, especially a Schnauzer dog, like our dog Colin (@schnauzer_colin) and a little baby Panda bear!

#The Verdict

Hide & Seek was a little BIG app full of surprises.

#The Rating

Overall: 5/5 (10 1/2 according to Poppy!!)

Look & Feel: 5/5 - Amazing graphics, realistic sound effects and such gorgeous characters.

Enjoyment: 5/5 - Poppy enjoyed walking around all the rooms, catching all the hidden animals, and playing with all the toys, dress-up and interactive furniture.

Playability: 4/5 - Playability was pretty good, the characters can move fast and slow, and navigation up and down the stairs was easy to miss, but a cinch once you found it.

Value for Money: 5/5 - The game is endless, and perfect for all ages, with lots of detail, and lots of rooms, there is plenty to keep little fingers amused.

[fourlittletesters]

The joy of finding two animals hiding in the same spot! Poppy playing @mobokids Hide & Seek ~ Rated 10/10 by #fourlittletesters #kidsapps #appsforkids #mobokids #ipad #apple

[fourlittletesters]

Poppy's favourite character ~ Mr Croc! @mobokids Hide & Seek ~ Rated 10/10 by #fourlittletesters #kidsapps #appsforkids #mobokids #ipad #apple

[fourlittletesters]

No time for Hide & Seek, chatting to my buddies! Poppy playing @mobokids Hide & Seek ~ Rated 10/10 by #fourlittletesters #kidsapps #appsforkids #mobokids #ipad #apple

[fourlittletesters]

There are so many interactive mini-games to play! @mobokids Hide & Seek ~ Rated 10/10 by #fourlittletesters #kidsapps #appsforkids #mobokids #ipad #apple

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Poppy playing @mobokids Hide & Seek ~ Rated 10/10 by #fourlittletesters #kidsapps #appsforkids #mobokids #ipad #apple

[fourlittletesters]

Looking forward to testing Hide and Seek from amazing Polish #kidsapp team Mobo Kids @mobokids

[fourlittletesters]

Tested: Bad Dream Brigade

#Developer: Holy Cow Productions

#Website: http://holycowprod.com/

#Purchase:

IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bad-dream-brigade/id1153968838?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Holycow.BDB

#Version: 1.0.4

#Cost: Free with in-app purchase $1.99 

Please note that we received a donation to review this released app.

#Support: Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android

#Size: 351Mb

#Screenshots:

#Developers Description

The Bad Dream Brigade are a new night-time emergency service! They are a group of funny, friendly monsters that are always on call to save children from their bad dreams and bedtime fears.

If you've ever had a bad dream, or even just get a little bit scared at bedtime, the Bad Dream Brigade are here to help!

The Bad Dream Brigade iPhone & iPad app contains a lot of entertaining content for children including activities, mini games and interactive stories. The app is targeted  for little ones between 3 - 7 but older kids will also love the fantastic art and stories.

Renowned children’s book author & illustrator Jo Litchfield brings you a series of stories about funny, friendly monsters and their rescue missions. Jo has written and illustrated lots of children's books but is perhaps best known for ‘Everyday Words’, which sold over a million copies within its first 18 months of publication and has been translated into over 35 languages worldwide.

Holy Cow Productions is reimagining Jo’s beautiful traditional hand drawn art & illustrations into the digital media. In addition to the interactive stories, we have created Activities and Mini Games for children to explore the world of the Bad Dream Brigade.

The Bad Dream Brigade are called into action for the first time in Stanley's Story, when Stanley starts to have a bad dream after reading a scary comic at bedtime. With music and fun they help to remind Stanley that it's just a dream, they show him that the scary things aren't so scary after all and help turn his bad dream into an unforgettable night time adventure. Your child can relate to Stanley and get rid of his night time fears! Stanley’s Story is available as an in-app purchase.

Activities: The activities give kids an opportunity to interact with the monsters and their instruments. Music Time is the first of many to come where your kid can become the band leader of the Bad Dream Brigade Orchestra!

Mini Games: Does your child love playing games? Why not let them play with the monsters and test their memory skills in Stanley Says or better their reflexes with a fast paced Bug Hunt game.

Stories: Our stories are original and contain traditional hand drawn art. The interactive stories are complete with professional voice overs, background scores, sound effects and animations

#The Review

Bad Dream Brigade is a great looking vibrant app, which comes with a free short story Introducing Stanley, a scared little boy who struggles to sleep at night due to nightmares. That is, until he falls down a hole and accidentally summons the Bad Dream Brigade, that come straight to the rescue and show him that the things in his dreams aren’t so bad.

The band really made the book, we had not heard of the story before, and so would love to have known more about the monsters including all their names, they would occasionally flash on load screens, but would go so quickly. Having the Author narrate the story works really well, and we really like the animations, as they had a cute ‘stop motion’ feel like 80′s cartoons. It was great that the mini-games were linked to core parts of the story.

#The Test

Poppy was super excited about reading the Stanley’s story, as she had sneaked a peak ‘pre-testing’ at the story introducing the Bad Dream brigade, however she had to wait for daddy to make the in-app purchase.

Poppy found the story books very easy to access, navigate and with both narration and highlights, she just sat back and enjoyed. The voice of the narrator was great, and the story was complemented with very good quality sound effects. 

Poppy enjoyed the cute looking monsters, delightful music, the funny sound effects and the great illustrations, she especially liked the alarm that went off and that Stanley fell into the tuba. I think the story was memorable for Poppy, and she couldn’t wait to share it with her bestie, the next time they met.

She didn’t like the bad bear, but was happy when the bears faced changed to a big smile. Poppy especially liked when all of the troop, the bear and the snake were dancing at the end. 

The storybook app comes with three great min-games, which Poppy loved.

Poppy first played ‘Stanley says’ and was able to watch the tutorial and understood what she needed to do Based upon ‘Simon says’ she had to copy the sequence of band members playing in the correct order. On her first attempt she got to level 11, and there were lots of smiles in the process. Second attempt she said I'm gonna lose this time, but no she made it to level 12, said ‘this is getting trickier’ and yep she failed at level 13.

Music time was next, and she said ‘Yay! I get to make more music’. Poppy had a good play with all the instruments, which were all freestyle, but then oddly she got stuck said ‘how do I get out?’ I had to show her how to get back to the main menu.

Next was Bug hunt, she said 'oh' as she heard the instructions, she had to move the monster with his instrument to catch all the falling bugs from the forest, and scored points for each one caught, or lost a life if she missed one. She did great, she scored 430 on her first life, final score was 1000, got to bonus, which got her very excited, I laughed as she said ‘woah woah woah’ as it got faster and faster. Her all time best score was 1340!! a top bug catcha! 

Poppy gave the app a 4/5 finger score and thought that it would be good twist if instead of a forest, they might get stuck in a cave, and when they got out of the cave there were butterflies and rainbows at the party.

#The Verdict

Bad Dream Brigade was a RIOT! Amazing illustrations and great musical games. thoroughly recommend to anyone who is scared of the dark shadows and night noises in their room.

#The Rating

Overall: 5/5

Look & Feel: 5/5 - Amazing artwork, realistic sound effects and groovy tunes

Enjoyment: 5/5 - Poppy enjoyed both stories, and was pleased with the happy ending, who doesn't love dancing animals and balloons.

Playability: 4/5 - Navigation is good, just misses an auto-narration feature.

Value for Money: 5/5 - With a free short story and free games, you get a lot of value before you part with any cash.

[fourlittletesters]

Check out this great Australian Made app on Kickstarter

[fourlittletesters]

The bad dream brigade dropped what they we're doing, grabbed their instruments and quick marched into action! #baddreambrigade by @holycowgames #kidsapps #kidsapp #appsforkids #app #ipad #ebook #book #dreams #kids