Games for the under-five crew tend to be a mixed bag. Sometimes the games are too hard, requiring difficult-to-grasp concepts like timed tapping or difficult puzzle-solving. Other times the games are often too simple, and are more like movies. One game that has managed to strike a good balance between engaging and simple is
Duckie Deck Bird Houses, by Duckie Deck Development.
Duckie Deck Bird Houses allows toddlers to take charge of an important task: designing the perfect home for a chubby pink bird. The bird is very excitable, and encourages kids with cheers and laughs and responds to almost everything that the child does. Change the house color? The bird loves it. Change it back? Even better. Put a balloon on his house? He's over the moon with how happy he is. On the plus side, the music for
Duckie Deck Bird Houses is lively and still a bit repetitive, as music for children is wont to do, but not grating or tinny. We think most adults will appreciate this feature as well.
The app itself is exactly as difficult as it should be for a toddler. Most of the actions require you to simply swipe and tap. Picking a tree, choosing the house color, choosing the roof color -- these are all done by swiping and tapping. Accents, like chimneys, balloons, bells, and lights are done by tapping and dragging, which proves to be difficult for very young users. We let a two-year-old try out the app, and he was able to pick trees and change the colors of the house, but found adding the accents to be more troublesome than it was worth. A little help from an older child, parent, or babysitter is probably needed for very young children, but preschool age kids should be able to get this on their own.
Duckie Deck Bird Houses is a solid app for toddlers between the ages of two and four, but will likely end up feeling a little too boring for kindergarten-age children. Duckie Deck Birdhouses is designed for both iPad and iPhone, and is
free.
Who Duckie Deck Bird Houses is for:
The tech-savvy toddler who gets bored with videos, but isn't quite ready for in-depth gaming yet.
Who Duckie Deck Bird Houses isn't for:
Kindergarten and elementary-school aged children who are ready to solve puzzles will find this game a bit too simple for their tastes.
-- Amber Neely (
@SurferAmber)
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