It’s fascinating to think about children growing up with favourite app developers or characters, just like they would toy brands or TV shows.
Our sons both brighten up at the site of a new Toca Boca or Nosy Crow app, for example. They wander round the house singing Talking Tom Cat’s song, and hang little Angry Birds keyring plush-toys off their school bags.
It’s fair to wonder whether kids will grow out of some of these app brands as they get older, or whether the apps and characters will grow with them. Judging by Toca Boca’s new app Toca Builders, for this app developer it’s the latter.
The company’s apps are famously accessible: three year-olds can pick up something like Toca Band, Toca Kitchen or Toca Train and quickly understand how it works, and how to have fun. Yet the creativity and open-endedness of apps like Toca Tailor and Toca Hair Salon 2 mean they appeal to much older kids too.
Toca Builders sees the company setting its sights more on the latter group: six and upwards, we reckon. It’s a bit more complex than previous apps to start with, but very rewarding as kids get to grips with its intricacies.
Have you ever seen or played a game called Minecraft? You could describe Toca Builders as a Minecraft for kids. Or rather a Minecraft for younger kids, because Minecraft is hugely popular among older children already.
Toca Builders isn’t a clone though: it’s as inspired by sandbox construction toys like Lego, providing a colourful virtual world where everything is made out of blocks. Blocks that your children create and fit together with the help of six cute ‘builder’ characters.
Blox drops and smashes blocks; Cooper and Jum-Jum paint them – the latter by spray-painting; Vex stacks them up; Stretch puts them anywhere; and Connie lifts and moves them. The genius of Toca Builders is that your kids build through these characters, rather than having to understand an impersonal interface of buttons and icons.
The basics for each are the same: you can move them around and then place (or smash) blocks, while changing colours at will. A button at the bottom of the screen helps switch between the builders at any time.
Once they understand how this all works, your child’s imagination is the only limit on their play. They can build houses, trees and cars, paint fields and roads onto the floor, or even build a great big monster floating in the sky.
Toca Builders autosaves your child’s creation as they go, which also means the app can have several on the go at once. That’s particularly useful if you have more than one child, since it means they don’t lose their carefully-crafted world when it’s their sibling’s turn.
We think the app could be as good for genuine collaboration between children, working in the same world – or when there’s an age gap, the older child building more complex structures before the younger one rolls around splattering them with paint.
As with other Toca Boca apps, there are no in-app purchases or ads from other companies: you pay your money for the initial download and that’s it.
It was quite a big risk for Toca Boca making a more complicated app for children, but it’s a risk that’s paid off in spades. This simplifies and makes accessible the construction play that’s made Minecraft such a hit among older children, while keeping Toca Boca’s signature charm intact.
Our only concern: as parents, you may find yourselves losing the odd evening to Toca Builders, if the app sparks your own creative instincts. Although the app is so fun, this isn’t really something to worry about at all.
Download link: Toca Builders (£0.69)