We, like millions of parents, are firm fans of developer Toca Boca. The company is on an impressively-long run of excellent children’s apps – and characters who appear in them.

Toca Boca tends to create a new set of characters for each app, but now it’s found a way to bring some of our children’s favourites back for a new release: Toca Town.

Released this week for iPhone and iPad, it’s based on a town (as you may have guessed) that your children explore using the touchscreen.

“Visit the store to buy groceries, stop by the restaurant to cook lunch, and head home to watch movies with friends,” suggests its App Store listing.

“Run over to the park for a picnic or the police station to meet the officers. Cereal for dinner or maybe a quick pillow fight before bed? In Toca Town you decide!”

The app doesn’t impose specific gameplay or storylines on your children: it’s more akin to a digital playset where they make up their own adventures.

“Remember there are no rules in Toca Town so don’t be afraid to interact with anything, even the toilet,” as the blurb puts it. Our two sons are more than capable of making up a few storylines involving the loo, we suspect.

Toca Town has 21 of the company’s characters available to interact with, including several from previous apps (we’ve already spotted Stikk Figga, the rapper from Toca Band, which our five year-old will be thrilled by). You can bring up a sliding carousel of them at the bottom of the screen to drop them into any location.

It looks brilliant fun. Toca Town costs £1.99 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store.

Read about more Toca Boca apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store