Without a doubt, Gigglebug’s Face Race is one of the silliest children’s apps of 2016 – but that’s an entirely good thing.

The game, from developer Gigglebug Entertainment, gets kids to copy the facial expressions of its cast of cartoon characters – giving them star ratings for how well they pull faces.

Released for iPhone and iPad, it works by using the camera to take snaps of whoever is playing. “We are proud to have developed an original face detection algorithm for this game,” explains its App Store listing.

“The device camera recognises positions of the eyes, cheeks, teeth, tongue and tilt of the head. The game evaluates the expressions and game gives feedback in the form of a playful star rating. After playing the game, you will get a ridiculous collection of photos of yourself and your loved ones having a laugh.”

That’s the key thing about Gigglebug’s Face Race for us – just as it was for the first Gigglebug app back in 2013 – that it is guaranteed to make you and your children roar with laughter together.

There’s more to Gigglebug than just apps: the Finnish company behind it has made a full TV series too, which we hope to see in the UK sooner rather than later:

For now, we’ll have to enjoy the app, and trying to get more stars than our extremely facially-expressive young sons!

Gigglebug’s Face Race is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store – and that’s completely free, since there are no in-app purchases.