Anyone who thinks children playing games and apps saps their creativity hasn’t seen the weird and wonderful creations being made in Minecraft. Or, perhaps soon, in Toca Blocks.

Actually, don’t take that as a comparison: Toca Boca‘s latest children’s app isn’t much like Minecraft at all. In fact, if anything it reminds us a bit of Terraria, a sideways-scrolling crafting game that’s also popular with kids.

Anyway, we’ll present it on its own merits: Toca Blocks starts as essentially a blank space: a digital world ready for your children to build whatever they like from blocks.

“Build worlds, tree houses, obstacle courses, spaceships and more! Make ponds, floating islands, gardens or even a train! Fill your world with toilets, chairs, kettles and doors,” explains its app store listing.

“Explore the blocks’ abilities by merging the blocks together and watch them transform into something else. Learn their characteristics — some are bouncy, some are sticky, some turn into teapots, turds or other surprises.”

Turds. We’ll skate over that gracefully, agreed? Good.

It may sound complex, but Toca Boca have done a great job of making the building process as easy as tapping on the screen to create or change blocks, with an eraser tool to rub out any mistakes.

While it looks like a game, there aren’t any goals or enemies to attack your child’s character or creations: it’s purely about the creative crafting process. And as you can see from the screenshot above, once they get into it, Toca Blocks is capable of some impressive depth.

Toca Blocks costs £2.99 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and £2.99 for Android from the Google Play store.

• Read about more Toca Boca apps for kids on Apps Playground